


Absolution In You

by HeroSavesPeople



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), westallen
Genre: Angst, Crimes & Criminals, F/M, Love, Mild Sexual Content, Romance, Violence, lots of coarse language, mild reference to sexual violence, very mild refrences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-04-27 02:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroSavesPeople/pseuds/HeroSavesPeople
Summary: When Barry meets Iris under unusual circumstances, he never would have imagined just how tangled in her he would become.He wasn't supposed to fall for her.  It wasn't supposed to be like this.  But the fates had a twisted sense of humor, it seemed and here he was...





	1. The Job

**Author's Note:**

> This story was one HUGE word vomit and stream of consciousness that was originally meant to be a one-shot consisting of a few pages but ended up being 35+ pages. Literally spent hours non-stop writing until 5 am even as my fingers got tired until it was done. Having said that, I apologize that it's unedited and may seem sloppy :/ Whether it's quality work or not, I'm grateful that it took me out of my writing funk momentarily. The Town AU
> 
> (The bro was watching The Town again, so I was inspired. Amazing movie, highly recommend. Like it more than the book.)

He wasn't supposed to fall for her.

He wasn't supposed to be here.  In the dark, quiet of the night, Barry couldn't mute his ever-racing thoughts.  Even after tiring himself with passionate lovemaking, his body was spent, but his mind was wired as his eyes took in her form.

In the warm glow of the moonlight, he scanned every part of her body within sight and as he hovered over her.  Even as he felt the warmth of her in his arms, he couldn't shake the mantra that was always a ghost in his mind.   _You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be here.  This isn't how it was supposed to be._  It ran rampant every second he was with her and even moments when he'd only gaze at her from afar.  

But even so, not a day went by that he didn't cherish being with her.  Not a day went by that he wasn't grateful to have met her even if it was under the most disastrous circumstances.

" _Iris_ …"

He whispered her name into the night, a prayer, as he let his fingers softly trace the soft skin her face, her sharp cheekbones prominent in the shadows of the moonlight.  He knew she wouldn't wake having been worn from his ardent attentions—just the thought of their earlier activities surged his body to life—but he was already missing her beautiful brown eyes on him.  The way their softness would rest upon his face with its loving gaze, god there was nothing in the world more powerful than the way he felt when she would look at him like that.

Years of the isolation and violence that wracked his life felt healed and for moments of time, everything else in his dark past was erased and there was just this, them.  Barry and Iris.  Just Barry and Iris, in their own world where the harshness of the world couldn't touch them, couldn't penetrate the boundaries of their very own universe they had created for themselves.  

But how was it that a man so tarnished and ruined into corruption able to capture the ultimate jewel?  Her heart.  Not just any heart, but hers.  He wonders about it all the time in moments like these where he's left to his own devices and vices of thoughts.  Iris West was by far the most remarkable soul he had ever met.

That terrible—or blessed, perhaps—sunny afternoon his eyes had set upon her, he knew instantly she was a stunner.  When he first saw her, it had been from afar and her features were unclear that he wasn’t able to appreciate them then.  But, standing there with her in front of him, not two feet away and he was momentarily dazed.  Had it been any other circumstance or setting, he would have stopped and paused just to drink her in.  Her beauty unparalleled with her oh so soft brown eyes that could melt you in seconds,  her berry full lips that looked like they tasted better than any fruit in the continents, her shimmery black hair falling in waves from the clip she had secured at the top of her hair.  That wavy hair that had fallen loose from her clip and across her face from the rough handlings of his partner.

But it hadn't been any other circumstance and so his admiration of her beauty would have to wait until another day, another day where she wasn't his victim and he wasn't her assailant.

The look on her face when they first rested upon his masked one haunted him in the days since and at times even in his dreams.  Though his reality gifted him with many wonderful moments with her that should have eclipsed that look of horror on her face, he'll never forget it.

He'll never forget the way she had stood stock-still as he pointed his gun at her and gruffly instructed her to open the vault.  Or the way she had let out a sharp gasp of fright when he shouted louder through the mask to get her moving.   _Please, don't make this harder_ he had thought.   _Please, just do as I say._

When Barry hadn't been able to achieve the desired response, his trigger-happy partner, Mick Rory was only too happy to shoot just past her head, barely skimming the tip of her ear.  Before Barry had time to react, Rory had marched over to her and roughly gripped her by the arm.  "Are you deaf, darling?  The vault. _Now_."

And had it been under any other circumstances, Barry would have broken Rory's wrist for manhandling a woman like that, but it wasn't.  As it was, they had a job to do and not a lot of time to do it.  The clock was ticking and they had to have the money in the bag and out of there in the next twenty minutes.

She had stumbled in her heels, but Rory's firm grip kept her from falling to the ground as he dragged her to where the vault stood, promising them of riches and in Barry's case, one step closer to his freedom.  Sure, once upon a time there was a thrill that came with the job.  A thrill that managed to interrupt the doldrums and the haunting thoughts.  But as time passed, Barry became acutely aware that his life wasn’t his own, that he was actually under the dirty thumb of a dirty savage and he had work to crawl out from under it.

Which was why he was there.  One step closer...

Her fingers had trembled, sloppily spinning the dial as she muttered her apologies in a low, shaky breath.  Her slow and clumsy movements were irritating Rory who was standing by while Leonard Snart began bleaching the floors.

Suddenly Rory stepped away from her and reached over to tug on an older man.  The man was dressed smartly in a formal suit and according to their research, he was Martin Stein, assistant manager of the bank.  The way he had moved protectively over Iris when they had first busted through the doors indicated they must have been close.  Clearly, Rory had picked up on that.

"Hey!  Hey lady!  This guy a friend of yours?"

Iris's head whipped around to look at Stein in Rory's tight grip, a gun pressed against Stein's temple.  Her eyes widened in horror as she took a step toward them.  "No! Don't hurt him, please.  I'm going as fast as I can."

Barry held onto her arm to keep her from advancing, knowing it would only irk Rory.  "Don't," he told her.

"Not fast enough, lady," Rory said, turning the gun on her.  "Now back up and get back to that dial before your buddy here gets his brains bashed in."

Iris took in a deep breath before turning back to the vault.  She clenched her jaws and Barry could see the flash of anger in her eyes, the fire that was threatening to blaze free, but with the threat of her friend's life, she complied.

He couldn't take his eyes off of her and perhaps that was making her all the more anxious so without a thought, he carefully placed a gloved hand on top her twitching one.

"Hey," he had said in soft and what he hoped was a reassuring voice.  "It's ok.  Breathe and take your time."  He rubbed a thumb over her hand and gently pulled away.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a brief moment, exhaling before spinning the dial again.  Time felt like it had slowed down as she carefully slid from one number to the next, and then finally the last one.  She carefully lifted her hands from the dial and Barry took her place in front of it, his nimble fingers quickly spinning the wheeling and opening it.

The fastest of them all, he stepped into the vault and quickly packed in the money into a duffle bag.  He was just finishing up on the last of it when a shriek cut through the air and shot through his heart.  Grabbing the last bundle of money, he stuffed it into the bag while racing out of the vault.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he barked at Rory who was dragging Iris away from a bloody Martin Stein.

"Insurance, ‘case they come after us.  Some fucker tripped the alarm."

Iris was shaking as she stared in horror at the old man, who Barry now saw sported a bloody gash on his head.  “He didn’t do anything, he didn’t do anything....”

"We have to move," Barry ordered.  They had a strict agreement that they didn't kill and if the cops arrived, there sure as hell would be blood spilled.

Rory shoved Iris toward the back of the bank with Barry following closely behind.  When he got close enough, he swiftly slid his arm over Iris's removing Rory's hand on her.  In his more gentle grasp, he guided her to the back door and into the waiting van where Snart was already behind the wheel.

Once they were all settled, Barry had blindfolded Iris before taking off his mask.  His face and hair were drenched with sweat, but his voice was calm and steady as he looked at Iris's profile.

"We're not going to hurt you, I promise."  As sure as he was of anything, that much was true.  He wouldn't let anything happen to her.  "You're going to get to go home."

That had been eight months ago.

Barry was sure he would never see her again after that day, but only days later Snart had caught wind of the fact that she was talking to the FBI and they needed to make sure there weren't any loose ends.  Before anyone could offer up their services of what Barry could only imagine ended in bloodshed, he had volunteered himself.

"I'll take care of it."  His voice impassive and expression as stoic as ever that it was more of a demand than a suggestion and after one look at him no one argued.

So he followed her for a few days, watching her every move and while he hadn't spoken a word to her since that day of the robbery, he had already learned so much about her.

She took her coffee black with two sugars before work and in the afternoon with cream and no sugar.  She drove a busted old red Prius.  She volunteered at the local orphanage and helped fund their recreational department.  She didn't have any family in town and seemed to keep herself busy with the occasional lunches with a friend by the name of Linda Park.  She visited Martin Stein in the hospital and made sure to stop by with a home-cooked meal.  

And then there was the day she was visited by one Detective Edward Thawne.  Barry's natural instinct was to be wary of law enforcement having grown up in a life of crime, but there was something about Eddie Thawne that rubbed him the wrong way.  He was clearly passionate and tenacious and these series of robberies had evidently raised the scales on his back.  But then there was that look in his eyes when they were upon Iris.  Attentiveness was certainly part of the job, but there was something else that made Barry itch.  He was already unsettled, wondering just what she was telling him and what she remembered from that day.

And so without thinking, he followed after Iris when she went into Jitters one rainy night.  It was one in the morning and there were only two others in the quaint coffee shop, typical of every other night Iris stopped by.  However, unlike every other night, he was there inside instead of watching from across the street.

He shook off the rain from his jacket and pushed his hair back as he walked up to the front counter while keeping her in his peripheral vision.  He quickly ordered the first thing on the menu for the sake of appearances, ignoring the barista's stare.  He didn't know if it was his haggard look—he typically kept himself clean-shaven and grow out his beard for disguises, but it was late and he was sure it his five o'clock shadow was present, which tended to make him look unkempt.  Either way, he ignored the look and made his way toward Iris while pretending to be engrossed in the paper he had picked up.  He chose the table two tables away lest he appeared suspicious for sitting right beside her in the otherwise empty coffee shop, but still kept her in his sights as he took a sip from the disgusting sweet drink.

He wracked his brain, trying to think of a way in.  Barry didn't exactly consider himself a smooth Casanova despite Rory and Snart teasing him endlessly about all the girls fawning after him.  Maybe they were telling the truth, but he never paid any mind since his only serious relationship was one of his accomplice's sister and that was because they had known each other for years.  It was almost expected that they end up together, but after a couple of years trying the on-again, off-again relationship he had called it quits when he realized it was more work than he was willing to put into it.  Barry may be a criminal but he had his limits and getting doped up on oxy on a weekly basis was not something he was interested in.  Certainly not when he was attempting to recover from his own coke addiction.

So he had sat there, hopelessly scratching off every clichéd pick-up line he had heard come out of Rory and Snart's mouth when something caught his attention.  A sharp hitch of breath.

He turned to look at Iris and noticed the tense curl of her fingers as she let out a shaky breath and swallowed thickly.  Closing her eyes, she took in another breath, before slowly releasing it and clenching her fists restlessly.

In that moment, as he took in her distressed posture, something flickered in Barry's chest, something close to remorse and it was that flicker that propelled him to carefully lean to the side and call out to her.

"Hey, are you ok?"

She still had her eyes closed, but the jerk in her body alerted him that she had heard him.  After a long pause, she finally spoke in a cracked voice.  "Yeah, I am"

But still, her breathing seemed too shallow for his liking so he carefully got up and sat at the table next to her.  Closer, but still not too imposing.

"God, this is mortifying," she whispered to Barry's confusion.

"Why?"

She lets out a weak chuckle, still with her eyes closed as she pressed a hand tightly to her forehead, brushing her hair back.  "Who has a breakdown at a coffee shop at one in the morning?"

Barry shrugged even if she couldn't see it.  "It's more common than you would think."

That gets her to open her eyes and look at him.  Her brows knit and there's a ghost of a smile.  Skeptical, but still his keen eyes pick up on the slight lift at the corner of her lip.  "Yeah?"

Barry nodded.  "Oh yeah, I've had my fair share.  Although, I think I prefer bakeries that way hopefully someone takes pity on me and gives me a free cronut or something." 

Now he was certain there's a smile.  "Does that work?"

"Eh, not as often as I'd like."

Now there's a laugh and damn if it didn't make him feel…something he didn’t know existed.  It was a wonderful sound, sweet and contagious, and he wanted to bathe in it.

"Yeah, I guess they can see right through the façade."  The irony of that statement wasn't lost on him.

"Well, that's um, that's reassuring," she said.  "I normally don't do this."

Barry smiled back in reply, wanting to prolong the moment.  He glanced down at her cup of decaf coffee.  "Hey, why don't I get you a cronut?  It usually does the trick."

"Yeah, ok, if you're having one."

Truth was, Barry wasn't much of a dessert person, but he'd be one for her.  So, when he returned with two cronuts, he presented it with a flourish.  "Hey, look," he said setting one of the plates in front of her.  "You didn’t even have to cry in a bakery for the cronut."

Iris laughed, the murkiness in her eyes finally beginning to fade.  "Well, I guess I'm a step ahead of you then."

They had spent the rest of the time talking until closing and Barry learned that she was originally from the suburbs but moved out to the city for a change of scenery after her father passed away.  The shadow returned when she spoke of him and Barry knew all too well the heavy weight that never goes away after the death of a beloved parent.  She had quickly diverted and asked Barry about his job, which was a well-practiced response he had ready for years.

And when Jitters finally closed up shop, he found that he wasn't eager to leave her company just yet.  He didn’t allow himself to overthink the implications of his efforts to prolong the moment but before he knew it, he had fallen in love.  Because those moments after Jitters turned into dates where he'd whisk her away on ferry boats, or museums, or fine dining downtown. 

There were moments when his initial intentions were forgotten as he basked in her company, hoping for more time with her.  And then the night she told him about what had happened to her a month after that night at Jitters, it was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him.

Days of ignoring Rory and Snart made it easy to forget what he did for a living, to forget that meeting Iris was supposed to be part of the job, but as he sat in her car one night he was reminded once again.

"Look, there's something that I feel like I have to tell you," she said, wringing with the scarf hanging from her neck.

Barry swallows nervously.  "Yeah, anything."

"It's just I feel like there are moments where I might seem a bit distant and I want you to know that it's not you.  I really am enjoying our time together, but…"  She bit her bottom lip as he waited in anticipation.

"It’s ok," he reassured her softly.

She looked out toward the windshield before exhaling slowly.  "About two months ago, I was working at the bank and…we got robbed."

Barry said nothing as he held his breath.

"Um, it was pretty jarring.  These guys in masks came in and made me open the vault and then they took me into some van.  They blindfolded me and we were driving around for who knows how long until they finally let me out.  They had blindfolded me and then told me to walk until I felt the water on my toes."  Her fingers knotted into themselves as she glanced at him.  "I'm ok.  I mean, I'm here and I'm alive."

"Yeah,"  Barry said hoarsely after a tense silence.  "Thank god for that."

And suddenly Iris's eyes welled up with tears before she inhaled sharply and clenched her jaws in anger.  "But, my friend...he’s not ok.  That’s what gets to me the most.  What I can't live with is the fact that I pressed the silent alarm while they were there.  I just got so pissed that they were going to get away with terrorizing us and I thought…I don't know, that they would get caught and instead…Martin got hurt because of it.  He's in the hospital because of me."

Iris turned to face the window, her eyes hard as she looked out into the night, her hands trembling in her lap.  "Every time I see him lying in that bed with that white bandage across his eye, I just think that should have been me."

Barry swallowed past the lump in his throat, wishing he could regurgitate the awful guilt in his stomach, but he can't.  Instead, he reached over to touch the side of her face and gently guide her to look at him.

"Hey," he said softly.  "None of this is your fault, ok?  What happened was fucked up and it shouldn't have.  The people that did this to you and your friend are the ones that should be feeling like shit, not you, so don't do this to yourself.  Don't let them have this."

He tried to keep calm and be there for her in the way that she needed but he couldn't help think of all the ways he'd like to make a bloody mess of Mick Rory right then.  Snart was his buddy, like a brother, and respected where he stood when it came to hurting innocents, but Rory was too trigger-happy.  If he wasn't Snart's brother, he would have let the cops have him a long time ago.

For a terrible, brief moment, Barry almost told her how he had seen the way Stein wanted to protect her, that he was probably glad it was him and not Iris.  But how could he say that?  Because as far as Iris knows, he never met Stein and he didn’t know what went down that afternoon at the bank.

So he held her in his arms instead, whispering words of comfort that he hoped penetrated her wall of guilt.  Because Iris did not deserve this and he hated himself for bringing this upon her.

Suddenly Iris pulled back with a determined blaze in her eyes.  "I'm going to find them."

Barry blinked at her, startled by the implications of her words.  "W-what?"

She nodded.  "Yeah, I'm going to find them and make them pay for what they did to me and Martin."

"Isn't that something you should leave to the law enforcement?"  Barry's pulse thrummed.

"It doesn’t matter how I do it, Barry.  Whether I use the help from the Feds or on my own, they're going down."

"Iris—"

"Do you know what he said to me?"

Barry's brows knit together.  "Who?"

There was rage in her eyes as she spoke in a low voice, unlike anything he had ever heard from her in their short time together, unlike anything he thought she was capable of.

"The man who hurt Martin.  The one who bruised my arm."

His eyes flickered to her arm as he felt his own rage boil up mixed with the trepidation.  Fucking Rory.

"What did he say?" he asked, trying to keep steady and calm.

"He said if I spoke to the Feds, he'd come find me and fuck me in my home before killing me."

Barry sat frozen, processing the words that she uttered as they echoed in his head.  They repeated over and over again as _his_ face flashed in his mind.  He could have sworn he had stopped breathing as the rage began taking over, his fists clenching and digging deep into the cushions of her seat.  But, it did nothing to temper the fury.

That was it.  Mick Rory's fate was sealed.  If he dared to step even a toe out of line, Barry would come for his blood even if it cost him Snart.  He'd take him down too if it came to it, much as it would pain him.

"I've been terrified, looking over my shoulder and lying to the FBI ever since.  But, no more.  I'm not going to let these low-lives take my life."

And as Barry looked at the determined set in her face, he knew those words would prove to be true, one way or the other.


	2. Navigate and I Will Steer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support, everyone! ♥ Hope you like this one :D

The months passed by with Barry planning the next job and skillfully dodging his colleagues questions about "the witness."

"Don't worry about it.  I'm checking in and things seem settled.  Soon as it's not, you'll be the first to know."

"Good," Rory had grumbled.  "Because I was thinking I should have just fucking killed her altogether for pulling that alarm."

Hot rage spikes in Barry's veins, fighting the almost uncontrollable urge to beat him to a bloody pulp.  No hammer, no guns, just his fists.  He took a steadying deep breath instead.  He had been keeping a close eye on him for awhile now and he hadn't stepped a toe out of line.  But, he never failed to tempt Barry into a fight.

"Don't forget," he said. "We don't kill innocents."

"Not unless they're witnesses."

Fuck it, Barry thought as he whirled around and reared back a fist.  Before he could make contact, Snart wrapped his arms around Barry and tackled him to the ground.

"Alright enough, you two," Snart drawled in his signature tired voice, despite wrestling Barry to the ground.  "You guys give me a fucking headache."

Speaking of headaches, Barry was reminded of a favor he had to ask Snart even as he fought against Snart's hold.  Rory meanwhile rolled his eyes and tucked his gun into his pants. "Ya need to relax, Allen.  Keep that temper in check, don't waste it on me."  He looked at his brother.  "Are we good here?  Because I've got a bunch of singles that are waiting to be tucked into some shiny panties."

"Get the fuck outta here, Mick.  You're starting to piss me off, too."  He finally released Barry who threw him off roughly.

Barry kept his eyes on Rory's retreating figure before turning to Snart.  "If I ask you to do something, will you do it without question?  I can't ever tell you why and you can't ever ask me either, but it involves hurting people."

Snart looked at him with amusement.  "Oh Barry, if you're telling me you want to beat the shit out of my brother, I already know."

"It's not him."  Not yet, at least.

After a brief silence in which Leonard contemplated the favor, he simply said,  "So, who's car are we taking?"

They arrived at the house near the shady part of town where Iris has said some guys had harassed her on her way to volunteer.  She hadn't meant to let that slip and he knew it based on the way she rushed to reassure him that she was unharmed and taking care of it.

"Taking care of it how?" he had asked suspiciously.

She rolled her eyes and pecked him on the lips.  "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah well, if someone's bugging my girl, then I'm going to worry about it."

"Your girl?" she giggled.  "What decade are you from again?"

He wrapped his arms around her.  "I'm being serious, Iris.  Who are these people?"

"No one you need to be concerned with.  They haven't been around in weeks.  Probably in some drug-induced coma."

He knew she wasn't going to fess up so instead, he settled for kissing her long and thoroughly before she headed off, knowing he'd find them.

And find them, he did.

He took Iris's route to volunteer and saw guys wearing the same denim jackets that Iris had mentioned who he had caught throwing bottles at a young mother walking with a stroller and tracked them back to their place, which is where he took Snart.

Outside the apartment door Barry and Snart looked at one another and nod before donning on their masks and without preamble, Barry knocked down the flimsy door with the combined effort of his trusty hammer and his steel-toed boots.

He barreled through the small studio as two men jump up from the couch where they had been watching tv.  In one swift movement, he knocked them both down, one elbow jabbing into someone's face while his foot kicked out the knees of the other.  He rushed toward the one with the neck tattoo and swung his hammer into his stomach.  The guy groaned and dropped down to his knees.

Barry only vaguely heard the grunts coming from behind him as Leonard took care of the other guy.  He carefully set down the hammer before rearing back and landing a punch into the man's face.  And another, then another.  He leaned down and tugged on the man's tank, pulling his beaten face close to his own.  In a low voice filled with all the fury he couldn't express to a certain other individual, Barry hissed.

"You think it's funny throwing bottles at people?  Huh?  You do that just for shits and giggles, so you can intimidate people?  Well, I'm going to fuck up your hands so you never throw another damn thing again."

He reached down and grabbed the left hand.  "This your throwing hand?" he huffed out from the exertion.  He twists the hand until he hears the pops followed by the agonized scream.  Barry drops it before picking up the other hand.  "Or maybe this is your throwing hand?  Hm, better to be safe, right?"

Snart came up behind him just as Barry stood up, leaving both of the man's hands mangled.  He let out a low whistle.  "Jesus fuck, never seen you this pissed before.  What'd he do man?"

"S'nothing.  We're done now."  He picked up his hammer and pocketed it before taking out a bag of white powder and dropping it over the man's body.  "There, have fun with that."

He turned to leave and was almost at the door when he realized that Leonard had stayed behind.  Barry looked back and saw Leonard crouched over the man's who lay groaning, asking him.  "So just what the fuck did you do, huh?  See, that's my brother right there and he's what you would call mild-mannered.  A little too hell-bent on staying on the straight and narrow but this?  What did you _do_?"

His inquiries were coming from a place of genuine curiosity but he had promised not to ask Barry questions, so he settled for this.  When he realized he wasn't going to get answers, he stood up and kicked the body hard.  "You really must've deserved it. Fucker."

It was two days later as he was wrapped up in Iris on her living room floor, his knuckles already healing when she brought it up.

"So," she gasped, pulling away from his lips with an abrupt sound.  "I haven't seen those guys the last couple of days."

Barry was too busy stuck in her haze to register her words as he slipped his hand under her skirt, sliding against her smooth thigh while his lips turned to her jaw.

"Barry."

"Huh?" he breathed into her neck, his tongue tasting her intoxicating flavor.  He had been waiting all day for her to come home and had plans to take her out, but that had gone out the window when she walked in and jumped into his arms.

"I wanted to tell you before I forgot," she said, slightly nudging him back.  He pulled his lips from her skin just enough to meet her eyes.

He blinked a few times, taking in her rumpled state that he was guilty for causing.  "Huh what?  Forgot what?"

"You know those guys I mentioned with the bottles?"

"Oh yeah," Barry said, his brain clearing just enough to register her words.  "That's great.  I hate that you didn't feel safe walking alone."  He caressed the side of her face, his thumb sliding against her cheek before he let his fingers get lost in her hair.

"Yeah, you and me both," she murmured.  "I wonder what happened with them.  I didn’t even get to use the dirt I dug up on them."

Barry stilled his caresses.  "Wait, what?"

Iris shrugged.  "I mean, I had to do something.  I couldn't just let them get away with assaulting people on the streets like that."

"So, what did you do?" he asked with thinly veiled trepidation.

"I found out that they have a spot where they like to deal drugs and then I found out that they were already out on parole for the same violation.  I figured if I could tip off the cops at the right time, they'd get arrested and be put away for awhile."  She shrugged like it was no big deal but his heart was beating so fast he hoped she didn’t notice.

He lifted off of her.  "How did you figure all that?"

She sat up and looked at him in confusion.  "I just borrowed Linda's car and tailed them."

"B-but the arrest records?  All that about them being on parole?"

"I know someone who's tech-savvy and can hack into the precinct's database."

Barry's breath caught in his throat.  "What?"

Iris scanned his face, her brows furrowed.  She reached over and ran her hand down his cheek with a slight smile. "Hey, it's ok, I'm not going to get into any trouble.  I'm just trying to expose the truth."

He grasped her wrist in his hand before she could let it fall.  "Iris," he said slowly, looking into her eyes seriously.  "Do you realize how dangerous this is?"

"Actually, it's not really."

He let out an astonished breath.  "Really.  You don't think going after these violent drug dealers is dangerous?  Not to mention, hacking into a police database is a crime!  If the Feds found out you did this, do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in?"

He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but Iris had been engaging in reckless behavior as of late and at this point, he was less- worried about her finding out about him than her getting into trouble while seeking out the truth.  Now, he was hearing that she was acting like a vigilante, getting involved in affairs that she shouldn't be.

Her arm had gotten slack in his hand as she tilted her head at him, her eyes flashing.  "Barry, what do you expect me to do?  First, those guys at the bank make me feel scared in my own home and now a bunch of assholes think they can intimidate me just because I walk through their neighborhood?  Screw that, I'm done living in fear."

She wrenched her wrist from his grip and stood up, putting on her top on her way to the dining table.  He followed behind, not letting her out of his sight.  "Iris, that is not what I'm saying.  Of course, I don't want you living in fear, but I don't want you putting yourself in danger for the sake of revenge.  This is why there are law enforcements in place, Iris.  They're there to protect people and take care of criminals so people don't have to be vigilantes."

Iris whirled around.  "Well, I don't need protection.  Not from the FBI, not from you, not anyone.  I am not going to stand idly by while  these monsters continue to wreak havoc and terrorize people."

There was a pause in which her heavy breathes was the only sound in the room, her breath hitching every so often.  He closed his mouth, taking in her trembling frame and right then she looked so small and fragile in her thin blouse and flowery skirt and it hit him once more just how scared she was.  Everything she was doing was driven by fear and anger because the day still haunted her.

"Iris," he said more softer.  "Baby, I know you're scared, ok, I know.  But, I'm here and I'm telling you, there is a better way to deal with this."

She shook her head.  "How Barry?  If I go to Detective Thawne with the information I have, I'll end up in the witness protection program just like you said. I am not willing to sacrifice my life here.  I have fought too hard to get here and I refuse to let these bastards take over my life."  And finally the tears fell, the tears that refused to fall either because she was too numb or too stubborn to let them.  "I won't let them," she cried.

Even as his heart broke at the sight of her, at the sight of what he reduced her to, he stepped forward and held onto her tight.  "Ok," he whispered into her hair.  "Ok.  I'm going to help you.  Whatever it takes."   

He couldn't sleep later that night.

He thought about her words from earlier, If I go to Eddie with the information I have… What information did she have?  Beside the catching sight of Rory's fireball tattoo, as far as he knew she didn’t have anything that could implicate any of them.  And then he thought back to how she had angrily declared she was going to find them.  Had she been following through on her words and looking into the incident with a closer eye?  Had she actually found anything that could incriminate them?

He held onto her warm body, her skin pressed against his, holding onto her as tight as he could without waking her.  He shouldn't be here.  This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

"Iris…"

It was only moments after she had succumbed to the exhaustion when he found the gun she had kept in her side drawer.  From the make and serial number, he knew exactly who was the distributor.  She may not have gotten it from his hands directly, but Barry knew that once upon a time that gun was in his own hands as he performed inventory for the rat bastard.  He knew where she had gotten it and was disgusted by the fact that piece of shit was even in her presence for a moment, let alone was responsible for the gun in her drawer.

Hunter Zoloman.  Otherwise known by his more colorful moniker, Zoom.

The man who had condemned Barry to a life of crime.  The man who had framed his father for a crime that he hadn't committed.  While it was safe to say Henry Allen wasn't exactly the most scrupulous of men, Barry's father was only ever interested in petty crimes before he had decided he wanted to lead an honorable life for his young son.

When Barry was eleven he remembered his father had taken him to the local flower shop where his uncle Hunter worked with his business partner, Damian Darhk.  His father ordered Barry to watch the front of the shop while he and his uncle spoke in the back, but Barry was too curious for his own good and had caught bits of their conversation.

"I can’t do this anymore, Hunter.  It's taking a toll on Nora and I don’t want Barry near any of this.  I have to be the kind of man that my son can look up to."

His uncle had been trimming bundles of roses that were as red as blood.  He clicked his tongue in shame and shook his head.  "Ah my dear brother, you're breaking my heart?  We always said we'd stand by each other through thick and thin and yet here you stand before me, telling me you want to what? Abandon me?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Henry sighed.  "Hunter, I'll always be there for you, just not like this.  I can help you run the shop, but I can't do the jobs anymore."

Barry couldn't see his uncle's expression from where he had hidden behind a shelf of flowers, but the silence that followed was deafening.  The sounds of shears scraping against stems stopped.

"So what, you're out then?"  He asked in a deadly quiet voice.

"Y-yes.  I'm out."

Barry stepped closer and peaked around the corner of the shelf, daring to catch a glimpse of his father.  His awkward and lanky limbs could barely coordinate and maneuver in the small space, but he finally found a gap.  And the sight before him was one that was had become forever ingrained in his young mind.  The grotesque sight of the most sinister smile he had ever seen spread across his uncle's face.

And in a voice so deceptively gentle, he says "We'll see."

It had shaken Barry to his very core and clearly, his father was just as affected.  Henry took a slow step back before calling out to Barry.

"Barry!  We’re going home."

Barry had scurried as quickly and quietly as he could back to the front of the shop before his father caught him eavesdropping or worse, his uncle.  He made it to the front just as his father walked into the main area.

"Hi dad," he said in a quiet voice, trying to appear casual.

Henry smiled at him but even Barry could tell it was a weak attempt at one.  He placed a hand upon his shoulder, guiding him toward the door.  "Let's go get some ice cream, shall we?"

But, before Barry could follow after his father, a shoulder clamped down upon his shoulder.  He jerked in place with a light gasp and looked up at the looming figure.

His uncle had a small smile on his face as he crouched down to Barry's level.  "Why don't you wait outside, Henry?  I'd like to share parting words to my dear nephew since you plan on taking him away from me."  While the words were meant for Henry, Hunter did not once look away from Barry with that same eerie smile.

His father hesitated.

"There are glass windows, Henry," his uncle reminded.  After another long pause, his father finally stepped outside, but still, Barry could feel his watchful eyes through the glass.

Once the chimes from the door quieted down, Hunter leaned in close to Barry as though telling him a secret.  "You know, nosy boys who spy on things they can get into a lot of trouble.  Or they can be the one making the trouble.  You decide which side you want to be on, Barry."  He patted his shoulder.  Now off you go.  I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon."

His words had confused Barry considering only moments earlier he had implied not seeing Barry for some time in the presence of his father.  But he decided not to give it another thought, eager to escape his presence.

It would be one week later that he would come downstairs to find his father in a fetal position on the living room floor, his face wet with tears as agonized wails left his trembling lips.  He would come to find his mother had left.

Another week that his father would be manhandled as he was being thrown into the backseat of a police cruiser.

Barry knew Hunter Zoloman had to have something to do with the demise of his family, but he wasn't anywhere ready to find out the truth.  And so his fate was sealed as his uncle took him in along with Mick Rory and Leonard Snart, two wayward kids that had a penchant for taking what didn’t belong to them. He had his father's dues to pay and the only way how was to bring in the big bucks.

And as he stared at the gun gleaming brightly in the moonlight, he knew there was far too much at stake now for him to be passive any longer.  No more letting his uncle call the shots and definitely no more Mick Rory.

He closed the drawer shut as gently as possible, trying not to wake Iris, but she stirred anyway.  She jerked in her sleep and let out a gasp, her hands coming up as though protecting herself.  She tried to turn on her side, but Barry's body over hers restricted her movements.  She began to twist restlessly, her face looking pained even in sleep.

He touched her shoulder carefully, his heart thrumming in his chest at the distress on her face.  He had seen it in her sleep a few times now and knew exactly what had caused it.

"Iris," he coaxed gently.  "Hey, it's ok, you're ok."

She gasped again her eyes snapping open, her breathing ragged.  "Sh, sh it's ok," he whispered.

"Barry?" she said blearily.  "What are you doing?

"It's ok, go back to sleep," he whispered.  He tried to tuck her back into her arms, but she turned on her side to face him.  She blinked a few times before opening them to look at him.

"What were you doing?"

"Just shutting off your alarm." he lied.  "I figured we could sleep in a little tomorrow instead of going to breakfast?"

She let out a sigh before sinking back into his embrace.  She took a breath in and out as his hands rubbed the skin of her back.  "Yeah, that sounds good.  Great, actually."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, inhaling the scent of her hair.  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.  Are you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," she murmured.  "Just another…"  She didn't have to finish her words.  Just another nightmare from that day.  He was haunting her.

"I've got you."

After a long moment of silence in which he believed her to be asleep, she spoke again.  "Hey, Barry?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you tell me something about yourself?"

He kept his lips pressed against her skin as he considered her words.  In the months they had been together, Barry had gotten away with revealing only the bare minimum, but even as he was afraid to admit it to himself, he had to confess things were getting serious between them.  It was only a matter of time before she would no longer be satisfied with the vague stories.

He pulls back and looks at her, not wanting to be afraid of her seeing his soul.  He fumbled still.  "Wh-what would you like to know?"

"What was your mother like?"

Barry hesitated and he knew Iris saw it.  She looked away with a sad smile and pulled up the blanket closer to herself.  Barry could feel her pulling away from him, drawing the distance he created further apart.  He moved closer to her, pulling her flush against him until they were skin to skin again.  He thought about it for a moment before pushing aside the darkness to make way for the happier memories.

His lips quirked a little.  "She was wonderful.  She had fiery red hair and I remember my parents talking about how they were convinced it would be passed onto me because it was so bright and powerful which suited her personality really well.  I ended up getting her eyes though. "  He thought back on the sparse memories he could remember of her when he was young.  "She would take me to get ices after school at the local park.  You know those carts that sold those flavored ices in a cup?"  Iris nodded.  "She'd take me there.  She'd always get a different flavor each time we went and I'd always, without fail, get the cherry flavor.  Mom would try to get me try the different flavors with her, telling me how it's good to try new things and explore your options."

"That's pretty good advice."

"Yeah, but I never took her up on it,” he said regretfully, realizing the wisdom of her words only in recent months.  Had he taken her advice long ago, maybe he could have saved himself sooner and put this town in his rearview a long time ago.  But then there would be no Iris.  “I always stuck with the cherry, partially because I liked the way the red would stain my tongue and lips after I was done with them."

Iris giggled at that.  "You must have been such a cutie."

He huffs out a bashful laugh.  "Hmm, I suppose if you asked my mother, she'd say so."

"Oh please, you, Barry Allen, are very cute and I can only imagine how you must have been an adorable little boy."  She reached up and brushed a finger over his eyelids, swiping across his eyelashes that settled over his cheeks.  She brushed her hand further down his cheek and he absolutely reveled in the feeling of her touch.  He opened his eyes slowly to look at her.

"Well, maybe I can scrounge up some old pictures," he said without thinking.

Her eyes lit up as she flashed him a bright smile.  "Really?  Yes, please."

He almost regretted the offer, realizing he would have to dig deep in the dark recesses of his childhood home's attic that he refused to enter.  He hadn't looked at a family album in the longest time in an attempt to spare himself further pain.  He didn't want the photographic reminder that he once had a happy and whole life with two loving parents.  What a stark contrast his life was from all those years ago.

But as he looked down at the woman in his arms, who looked at him with more love than he could remember, he thought that this was maybe what it was all leading to.  That all those horrible things had to happen if only to find her.

He stroked her skin softly, tracing the curve of her shoulder.  "Hey, Iris?"

"Yeah?"

He swallowed hard.  He hated that this was so difficult for him and he didn’t know why.  Perhaps it was because it was the first time he would have uttered the words to someone other than his mother and father.  Or maybe it was because he spent much of his life without the sensation of selfless love that he didn’t know it could be so effortless.  While he felt the weight of the words in his heart every day, Barry hadn’t gotten good at expressing them. 

"I just...I just want to tell you-I need you to know...”

"I love you, too," she whispered, sparing him.

And he knew no truer words had been spoken, he felt it deep in his bones.

He cupped the side of her face with one hand while his other arm wound tight around her.  "I need you to know that no matter what, I would never do anything to hurt you and I will never let anything touch you."

"You don’t have to save me, Barry," she said softly.

"I know.  But, I'm telling you that I want to.  I'm going to stand by you."  He swallowed hard, the faces of his family flashing through his mind, especially Snart.  "Whatever you need to do."

"I need to find them."

He nodded, expecting as much.  "And then?"

She didn't say anything until she softly whispered, "I don't know."

“What if you and I went away somewhere?”

She tilted her head up to look at him, a curious smile on her lips.  “What about your job?”

“I was thinking of quitting too.  Try something new.  I have some, uh, cushion put away, too.  A couch actually.  We’d be ok.”

“Where would we go?”

“Anywhere you want, I’ll go,” he said softly. _Take me to paradise.  Save me._   “Anywhere as long as I get to be with you.  You made me want to see the world, explore something outside of this town that’s become more of a cage than a home.” 

Her hand came up to cup his ear, fingers digging into the tresses of hair near.  He leaned into her touch, meeting the softness of her gaze that looked at him curiously and with a hint of concern. 

“Is everything ok?”

He let out a shaky breath.  “Yeah.  It’s just, I look at you and how passionate and curious you are and it made me realize...I never felt anything like that until I met you.  Before you, I just led this routine life where it was just one day after another, one job after another and for what?  I’ve got this savings I never touched and for _what_?  I mean, what am I doing with my life?”

“But it’s not to say that all this time has been wasted, you know?  You’ve worked hard, Barry, but now it's just time to reap the benefits of it,” she said.  “Besides, it’s never too late to figure out what you want. ”

He already knew what he wanted.  Her.  Just her, somewhere far away from this hell-hole with him. 

“Yeah, you’re right.  So, where shall we begin our adventures?”

She smiles up at him and shrugs her shoulder.  “I don’t know.”

But Barry had an idea where they could begin.


	3. Dark Tides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...¯\\_(ツ)_/¯covering my eyes as I post this because don't love how this came out. It's a mess. I do apologize for the delay and I hope you guys like it at least!
> 
> Warning: Violence and angst ahead.

Barry had an idea for what could come after.

With a new sense of resolve, he walks into the flower shop the next day.  His uncle is standing at his usual post with his back turned against him.  Darhk sits nearby, lazily counting money from the till.

Darhk looks up, never ceasing his counting while his uncle carries on making flower arrangements.

"I'm out," Barry says without preamble.  "You're going to have to get the next job done without me."

Zoom pauses in his arrangements, his hands stilling.  "I don't think you understand quite how it works, son."

"I understand just fine."  Barry takes out a worn paper bag from his jacket pocket.  "This is my payout on the last job.  As a courtesy and everything you've done for me."  He set it down on the table in front of him with a thud.  

Zoom slowly turns around, his movements unhurried.  He looks at Barry and quirks his lips slightly.  "Just like your father," he drawls.  He clicks his tongue and shakes his head.  He picks up a rose from the table and begins clipping it.  "Do you remember that day, all those years ago your father came right to my door saying the same thing?  Well, not quite the same," he amends.  "Your father was a lot more polite about it and yet you stand here like you're some kind of prince."

"Why do you have to make this hard, Hunter?"

Zoom's eyes snap up to look at him, flashing with barely concealed anger.  "Have some respect, boy."

Barry ignores him.  "You have your boys and I know you're always looking to recruit.  You don't need me anymore."

"Oh well Barry, I didn't realize you were feeling so useless.  I apologize you feel that way—"

"Fucking cut the crap, will you?" Barry walks up to the table where his uncle sat and leans forward, his hands resting on the surface.  He looks at his uncle with every bit of bitterness and hatred he held for the man.  "Let me repeat myself since your aging ears didn't catch it the first time.  I'm fucking done.  You have a problem with that, you come find me at 323 Infantino Street.  Stop by any time."

Hunter's stare hardens as Barry pushes off the table and take a step back.  "You didn't let me finish the story, Barry,” he begins with an eerily calm tone that belies the fire in his eyes.  “See, when your father tried to walk away, I clipped his nuts and took everything from him.  I destroyed his family."

"Don't fucking talk about my father," Barry grits out, his blood pumping with anger he was trying to keep at bay.  The last thing he wanted was a brawl and he didn’t intend for it to escalate.  He takes a breath, fighting to keep calm.

The smile that spreads across Hunter's aged face is so sinister, it might have made Barry quiver in fear had he still been eleven years old.  He knows it made grown men twice his own age still tremble and it was that power that made them do whatever Hunter Zoloman asked of them.

But not Barry Allen.

"Well then, let's talk about your mother, shall we?  Your father said she uh, she left, right?  Is that how the story went?  She couldn't take being a coward's wife anymore and didn't want to be the mother of a little piece of shit like you so she hightailed it out as fast as she could.  That's how you remember that story, don't you?"

Barry says nothing, standing stock-still as he tries to prepare for the heinous words that would come next.  He knows his uncle would do anything to manipulate him, had been doing so for the last seventeen years.

"Well, let me enlighten you, my sweet nephew."  He walks around the table and slowly strides over to Barry until they stood face to face.  Barry refuses to look at him, his height making so that his eyes land on Zoom's chin.  He feels the heavy hand of his uncle land on his shoulder before leaning in to whisper in Barry's ear.  "I fucked her up with some smack and let your daddy find her body."  The hand on Barry's shoulder travels up to the back of his head to catch his hair in a firm grip.  "And then I watched as the cops took him away for something he didn't even do, knowing full well my brother would live the rest of his natural life rotting in a high-security prison.  But he didn’t make it very long, did he?  So you tell me, son—"

“Get your fucking hands off me,” Barry seethes, his eyes shifting up to meet Zoom’s.  He could feel the walls inside him trembling with the barely suppressed rage and the heartbreak.  

But Zoom ignores him, looking at him with a calm that belies the barely hidden threat in his gaze.  He jerks Barry’s head closer while gritting his teeth.  “So you tell me, son, just who do you think you are?”

Barry’s fingers twitches, his knuckles tingling with the urge to hit something as the blood boils up inside him.  Against his will he finds himself breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring, giving away how affected he was by the words that cut through him like razor blades.  

He glares into his uncle's eyes, feeling the heavy hand on the back of his head like an armored weight.  He would love nothing more than to take that hand and crush every fucking bone in it before taking apart the rest of him.  

He had always wondered where his mother went, always fantasized that she would return to them one day.  Perhaps she had settled somewhere nice where she could watch the sunset by the beach, where she was able to take the break she needed before coming back to them.  As he got older, his hope had dwindled, but there was still a flicker that stayed alive.  Deep in the dark recesses of his thoughts, he imagined that he would one day go looking for her instead.  He would show her that he had turned out ok and show her the money he had raised to give her.  

But now...now that hope was snuffed out just like the light had been when his uncle stole her mother’s life.  

He could feel the burn in his nose that warned him of the tears to come, but he forces himself to fight against them, to think of Iris.   _Iris, Iris, Iris_ …her face flickers in his mind, her bright smile that never ceases to simultaneously thrill and calm him.   _Iris, Iris, Iris_...she needs to be kept away from all this.  Trouble was coming, the dark clouds looming ahead and he needs to make sure she didn’t get caught in the eye of the storm.  

He grits his teeth and pulls out of his uncle’s grasp with a rough jerk.  He straightens a glare at his uncle before turning away toward the door.    

"Oh, and one more thing, Barry," Zoom calls out.  "I hear you have yourself a nice, sweet girlfriend.”  Barry stops in his track, a cold shiver running through his chest.  “Lives right by the park…I wouldn't want to send her funeral arrangement to your house, now that I know where you live and all."

Without looking at his uncle, Barry burst out of the flower shop, marching until he rounds into the nearest alleyway.  He punches the brick wall and lets out a scream of anguish, his mind filtering with the new information about his mother and the looming threat on Iris's life.

He couldn't let Zoom win.  He had to find a way out of this.  

He made it to Iris's place in record time, using his set of keys to walk in.  "Iris?" he calls out, his heart thumping in his chest. The place was too quiet for his liking.  He put one hand on the gun on his belt as he carefully moves within the apartment.

He makes it to her bedroom where the door stood partially open.  His pulse is fast, vibrating against his skin as he slowly reaches out one hand and pushes open the door.

Iris sat there on her bed, shaking as she looks at the floor with stricken eyes.  He rushes over to her, kneeling on the ground in front of her.

"Iris?” he breathes.  “What's wrong?"

She jerks at his touch, before settling down.  She takes in a deep breath and releases it slowly, nodding her head in jerky movements.

"I'm fine," she finally chokes out.

Had someone gotten to her already?  But, no if they had then she wouldn't be here, he reasoned.  "Baby, you don't look fine.  Please, talk to me."  He reaches out a hand to cup the side of her face.  Her skin felt so hot, almost feverish.  For a brief moment, the thought that she was poisoned crosses his mind.

"Hey, did you go anywhere today?"

She looks at him then with furrowed brows.  "Why?”

"Just-d-did you go to the orphanage or Dr. Finkle’s?"

She shakes her head slowly and Barry let himself relax a little.  He would worry about the fact that she skipped out on her appointment later.  "What's going on, Iris?"

Iris looks down at the phone clutched in her hand and lets out a quiet sniffle.  “Martin's granddaughter is taking him to Starling City.  She said that he needs to be in rehab for awhile and is bringing him closer to her."

Barry let out a deep sigh of relief that he hoped she would take as distress on her behalf.  Getting the news that Martin Stein had suffered partial eye loss and some memory loss as a result of the robbery had been hard for Iris when she found out months ago.  Her guilt had only gotten worse and the determination to find those responsible grew stronger.

He had tried hard to steer her away, telling her that the FBI was more equipped to handle it and would bring Stein to justice, but it only made her pull away from him and keep secrets.  He was in no place to feel hurt by it, but it didn’t mean he wasn't.

Her visits to see Stein never stopped, but now hearing how he wasn't even going to be taken care of by family must have cut through Iris even more.  He didn’t know if he would ever be able to assuage her guilt even if she did find out about his involvement.

"Iris, don't do this to yourself.  It's not—"

"It's not my fault,” she says softly, her voice cracking. She turns to him with a strange look.  "I know that now."

He doesn’t say anything, wondering what that look was before he nods slowly.  "Good.  It isn't.  You shouldn't carry that weight on your shoulders because it isn't your burden."

"Is that how you carry on living?"

Barry's breath catches in his throat, his blood running cold.  "Wh-what?"

"Not feeling an ounce of guilt or pain every time you see me distraught over what happened.  Because you tell yourself that it's not your burden to carry…even if it is."

And suddenly the arm he was gently stroking no longer feels familiar as he finally recognizes the look in her eyes.  In the midst of hurt and anger, there was betrayal.  How long had it been there but he was too blind to see it?  Too caught up in his fantasy that they were going to be ok to see that she really was pulling away.

"Iris…"

She sits stiffly, never looking away.  "What else do you have to say to me?" she asked in an eerily calm voice.

"H-how?  Who spoke to you?" he asks in a hushed voice, his heart racing.  He couldn't comprehend what was happening.  This wasn't how it was supposed to be, this wasn't how she was supposed to find out.

"I told you, I was going to find them.  And that's exactly what I've been doing."

She pulls a small crumpled paper out of her cardigan pocket and shows it to him.  “Recognize this?”

Barry cautiously looks away from her face and down at the paper she held out in front of her.  He squints his eyes and immediately sees what she’s showing him.  It’s a white sheet of paper filled with sketches of what looked like a logo.  There were variations of it, as though trying to get just the right look.  And there it was, just off to the center of the sheet.  A circle with a lightning bolt across it.  It was the only sketch that was darkened with repeated hard strokes and two underlines below it.    

His heart thuds in his chest and he fights to maintain composure.  It was the very same logo for the auto shop Hunter had let him work for years before finding a better opportunity at Ramon Industries.  

“I’d been working on it for awhile,” she murmurs, still with that eerie calm.  “When I was blindfolded in that van, I couldn’t see anything ahead of me.  But, for a brief moment, I saw something under the blindfolds.  A hand passing off a sheet of paper across my lap with a logo on the stationery.  There was writing on the paper that I couldn’t catch but that logo haunted me.  I tried to pin down just what it was because all I saw was a flash of it.”    

Barry swallows thickly, looking up at her shiny eyes.  He waits with bated breath, wondering just how he had missed this all along while he was with her.  How did he miss the fact that she had gotten this far? How the hell did she pin it down to him?

“And then Linda asked to pick up her car from this shop one town over and guess what I find when I get there?”  She pulls out a notepad with the words “Flash Auto Shop” printed next to a circle with a lightning bolt inside it.  And just like that, the realization settles in.

“I pulled their employee records and found out that once upon a time a Barry Allen, Leonard Snart, and Mick Rory had worked there.  The manager spoke of the three brothers that kept business booming.”

She stands up and Barry sees that she was sitting on a folder and he realizes she must have hidden it when she heard his voice.  

“How-how did you even get those records?  They’re confidential.”  He stammers uselessly in a daze.

“A scorned woman finds a way.”

She tosses the folder to him where he still remains kneeled, frozen as her words penetrate the fog his mind had fallen into.

"What really solidified things was the tattoo.  Mick Rory's records show that he has a fireball tattoo on his neck…just like the one I saw the man that bruised my arm as he told me he'd come find me if I spoke to the Feds.  That's your buddy, isn't it, Barry?"

"No!" he says vehemently as if it would make a difference to her.  "He is _not_ my friend, Iris.  I just work with him, but I've been keeping him away from you."

She let out a mirthless laugh, her eyes welling up.  "Oh, so you're my savior now?  Condemning me to a life of looking over my shoulders, but somehow you're protecting me."

He stands up, holding his hands out in a placating manner.  "You need to give me a chance to explain, please.  Ok?  I promise I can explain everything to you."

She shakes her head.  “No,” she whispers.  "Just get the fuck out of here.  I have all the explanation I need."

He feels the prickle behind his eyes but swallows past the urge to scream.  He needs her to know the truth, he needs her to know that he loves her more than life itself.

"Iris," he pleads.  "There's more to the story.  I promise you, I wanted to tell you.  That night I took you out on that boat?  I was going to tell you then.  I just wanted to spend one last night with you because I knew you would hate me afterward."

"Oh you mean, the night you screwed me?" she burst out.  Barry closed his eyes slowly, realizing she was mistaking his intentions from that night.  He really hadn’t meant things to go that far.  He hadn’t meant for a lot of things to go as far as they did.

He presses his hands to his temples as she continues.  "Was that your plan all along?  Follow me, terrorize me, trick your way into my life, into me?"

His eyes snap open.  " _No_!  Of course not, Iris, you don't understand how much you mean to me.  The reason I followed you, to begin with, was to protect you.  I know you don't believe it, but that is the truth.  I had no intentions of falling—"

" _Fuck you_!"

Her screech echoes in the abrupt silence of the room and suddenly he could hear the beat of his heart loudly in his ears.  It was so loud as though he was listening through a pair of stethoscope and for an irrational moment, he wonders if she can hear it too.  How it was beating and breaking for her all at once.

"Iris," he says in a small voice, weak with despair. _Please, goddamnit, please believe me._  “Look at me.  Please, just look at _me_.” He begs her even as she does look at him.  

"Get out," she says, the tears finally spilling.  "Get the fuck out of my home and don't you ever let me see your face again."

He walks toward her, his hand reaching out, needing her to feel him and what he felt for her.  She jerks away just as his hand brushes against her arm.

"Don't," she says dangerously.  "Don't you touch me."

 _I love you so fucking much._ He wants her to know, god how he needs her to know.  But looking at her ashen face, the way she looked at him with such betrayal, he knew uttering the words would only piss her off further.  She was in no state to accept his love...and really, could he blame her?

So without another word, he steps to the side, keeping his sights on her before leaving.

The sunken feeling in his chest follows him as he makes his way to Snart's, knowing he'd find the brothers home there.

Sure enough, there is Rory sniffing a line of coke while Len messes around with a newly acquired guitar.

"Heeey, there he is.  Mr. I-don't-do-no-more-jobs," Len said with a smirk.  "Have you talked to Zoom?  Because he's not too happy with you wanting to back out and quite frankly neither are we."

"I don't give a shit," Barry mumbles, eyeing the small packs of blow sitting beside Rory.  His heart hadn't stopped thumping in his chest and there was a fire that had been building inside of him needing to be released.

"No?  Well, whatever happened to loyalty brother?"

Barry looks at Len.  "You never get sick of this shit?  Don't you ever want to put this life in your rearview?  We never asked for this, Len."

“You’ve never complained before.”

“That’s because I didn’t know anything else.  I never knew better.”

Len only shrugged.  "Hey man, I have no complaints.  I have food in my belly, money in pockets, and all the drugs and weapons I could ever need to keep my family safe.  What's there not to love?"

"What about getting killed?  Or getting caught and spending the rest of your life surrounded by cinder block?  That never crossed your mind?"

"Well, I live for the danger.  What's life without a little thrill?"

Barry feels the energy thrum in his body, his fingers twitching as they reach up to rake through his hair.  He pulls on the strands roughly, feeling the onslaught of a headache coming on as he looks at where Rory was sitting back on the couch, his head tilted backward, taking in the high.

Barry marches over to Rory and snatches up a pack of white powder.

"Hey!" Rory's head snaps up to glare at Barry.  "Get your own fucking stash."

"Fuck off."  Barry walks into the kitchen, Rory following hot on his trail.

"Hey, I said get your own damn stash."  He feels a heavy hand clamp down hard on his shoulder and Barry whirls around, twisting Rory's arm painfully behind him.

Mick Rory may have been built heavier than Barry's thin frame, but he was dumb and relied on brute force.  Barry, on the other hand, is equipped with well-trained muscles and a calculating approach.  He knows his attacker's moves before they could make it and Rory was no different.

Barry tightens his hold on Rory's arm who lets out a grunt of pain.  "No, I'm pretty sure you said 'Get your own _fucking_ stash,' but you know what, Mick?  I want yours and I am going to take it."

"I'm going to kill you," Rory says in a strained voice before twisting around and throwing Barry against the fridge.  He lands painfully but it doesn’t stop him from ducking just in time as Rory's fist came toward him, hitting the fridge instead.  The glasses within shook at the force.

Rory charges toward Barry, slamming his body against the counter, the edges digging into his bones.  Barry brings his elbow down hard against Rory’s back, but he doesn’t let go, only gripping Barry tighter.  Barry struggles to breathe as he tries to maneuver around his hold.

Rory suddenly lifts Barry up and slams him hard against the floor.  Barry’s head bounces painfully off the linoleum, his vision blurring for a moment.  Through the spots in his eyesight, he sees Rory looming over him and only waits for him to make his next move.  

Rory grabs him roughly by his shirt, nearly tearing at the thermal fabric but before he could do anything else, Barry’s hand strikes quickly at his throat, choking Rory with his own trachea.  In the second Rory let go of him, Barry lands another punch to his eye.  He takes Rory’s head in his hand and slams it against the kitchen counter with a loud thud.  

Rory's body slid to the ground and Barry watches, trying to catch his breath.  His chest feels constricted and the pain in his head is barely a thought as the adrenaline pumps through his blood.  He walks over to Rory’s prone body and straddles him, grabbing him by the neck and looking into his one eye that wasn't bloody.

"I want you to look at me, Mick," Barry growls.  "I want you to fucking look at me.  You see this face?  I don’t give a damn about the history you and I have because you need to know that you do not fuck with me.  I'm done with your bullshit."

He hears footsteps come up behind him as he stands, breathing heavily.

"What the fuck, Barry!"

Barry ignores Len and walks over toward the fridge where the pack of white dust had fallen.  He picks it up before opening the fridge as though nothing was amiss, letting Len take care of the piece of shit.  He grabs two bottles of beer that had fallen on their sides before slamming the fridge shut and looking at Len.

Len stares at him as though looking at a stranger, his brows furrowed in confusion.  He shakes his head.  

"I thought you gave up on that shit."

Barry shrugs.  "Who said you can’t go back to old habits."

Barry makes to move past him when Len grabs him by the arm.  "What the hell is going on with you?"  There was a tinge of concern in his voice as he scrutinizes Barry's expression.  “You don’t pull this shit.”

"He's fucked is what it is."  Barry and Len look down at Rory who was twisting on the ground, somehow managing to speak.

"Put some ice on that and shut up," Barry says.  He shook Len's hand loose from his arm and slammed the door shut on the way out.

Hours later he sits in an abandoned train cart staring at the white powder he had shaken out on a glass surface.  The two bottles of beer sat empty as he contemplates the pile of coke.  It had been a long while since he had it in his system.  He had decided a long time ago he needed some kind of stability in his life that a life of crime couldn't offer so he quit drugs and tried to lead as much of an honest life a thief could.

But sitting there alone in the train as the sun showed signs of setting, Barry wonders what he had to lose at this point.  He supposes he always knew there was something out there for him beyond this life, but he never could pinpoint what it was until Iris West happened.

Iris, who led an honest life.  Despite the tragedies she faced through the years, she never used it as an excuse to be cruel and punish people, but instead, she used it as fuel to do good in the world.  To find ways to make the world better and inspire those around her.

But now he had lost that.  He had lost the one good thing in his life that made everything else worth it and here he sits alone, wondering what he had left to fight for.

No, she wasn't gone, he thinks.  She may hate him, but there's still a target on her back and there wasn't anyone else that could do anything about it beside him.  Gritting his teeth he leans down close toward the white powder and takes in a deep breath.  He purses his lips and blows across the surface watching as the powder floats away from him.

This wasn't the end.  He still had a job to do.


	4. This Side or the Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay! Ended up cutting down a lot. Thank you so much to those that followed this story and have shared your wonderful thoughts about it. It means a lot and I hope this was worth the wait. ♥
> 
> Warning: Violence ahead. I know at this point, it's nothing new, but I still feel like I should warn about that :P

Four days later he walks into Zoom's flower shop and tells him he's in.  He threatens to kill him and Darhk right where they stood if anything ever happened to Iris, but he was in.  They had succeeded in manipulating him when they left a funeral flower arrangement with Iris's name on his doorstep.  He had tore up the arrangement in a rage, watching the petals float to the ground in the mid-afternoon breeze. His blood on fire, he marches over to let them know before seeking out Iris. 

It was a Thursday afternoon, three weeks later, and he knew she would be leaving the orphanage around that time and making her way over to the park afterward.  Ever since she quit her job at the bank, Iris had taken to volunteering more full time at the orphanage while she did some freelance writing on the side. And apparently other activities that he had been unaware of.

He watches from afar as she steps out the building and walks over to the nearby park, sitting at a bench in front of the pond.  He takes a deep breath, swallowing the lump in his throat before crossing the street. His gaze is so focused on her that he nearly gets hit by a passing car.  He worries for a moment he’ll draw her attention and she’ll leave before he has a chance to speak with her, but mercifully she seems too deep in thought to look back.   

Ignoring the irked driver, he marches forward, his hands stuffed nervously in the pocket of his coat until he was standingbehind her.  His heart hammers in his chest and he feels as though he can barely breath.

He had been involved in numerous robberies in his life and maintained a calm in the midst of pandemonium and yet he felt as though he was gearing up to freefall from an airplane. 

"Iris."

He knows the moment she registers his voice, her body stiffening.  He walks around the bench, needing her to see his face, needing to see hers..  "Iris, please I just need to talk to you."

She stands abruptly as though preparing to leave and he reaches for her arm without thinking.  She jerks away, finally meeting his eyes.

"Don’t touch me."

He looks at her for a long moment and could see the exhaustion in her eyes.  It had been days since he last spoke to her and she had plenty of time to turn them in but she didn't.  Something in her kept her from doing so and while he wondered what it was, he was more concerned with her knowing the truth.  He needed her to know everything. And whether it meant he was giving her more ammo against him, he didn’t care. As long as she knew. 

"I'm sorry, Iris.  I'm so sorry for everything that I put you through, but I just-I just need you to know the truth.  I will never lie to you again. _Ever._ "

"Yeah?  And how exactly do you expect me to believe that?"

"Because you'll hate the answers."  His eyes never waver from her face. “Anything,” he whispers.

She looks at him silently before letting out a slow breath.  "How long were you following me before you approached me?"

"A couple of days."

"How many robberies have you been involved in?"

"Six trucks, two banks."

She pauses, holding her breath.  "Have you ever killed anyone?"

"No," he says without hesitating, looking her straight in the eyes.  "We have a code."

"But you do take hostages."

He shakes his head.  "No. That wasn't supposed to happen.  It was an impulsive decision on Rory's part."

"Who's idea was it to follow me?"

"Rory."

 Iris let out a mirthless chuckle.  "Of course it was. The fucking psycho."

"We don’t take hostages because it creates too many ties and makes the job bigger than it needs to be.  He saw you lived in the area and was worried somehow you'd ID us after he saw you talking to the Feds."

She nods, looking away toward the pond.  He watches her profile carefully, trying to gaugue what she was thinking.  Needing to know that she believed him.

"Iris.  I will never lie to you, I will never hurt you and if I lose you…I will regret that for the rest of my life."

Her breath hitches at his admission.  She turns back to him and the look in her eyes makes something flutter in his stomach.  There was confliction and hesitation, but the anger had abated.

 "I need to know..."  Her voice was so quiet and soft that he almost misses it in the wind.

"Anything."

"Are you in love with me?"

He cautiously walks toward her.  “Yes.”

Something flickers her eyes and Barry watches her throat bob as she swallows hard.  

“Barry,” she croaks.  “What do you expect from us?  What do you think can happen?”

His heart stutters in his chest and he tries to be subtle as he takes in a deep breath, trying to ease the ache.  

 “We-we can come back from this, Iris.  We can start fresh like we’ve been talking about.”

 “It’s all been a lie,” she says softly, her eyes unwavering.  Searching.

 He shakes his head.  “But, it hasn’t,” he says just as softly.  He looks down at the mere two feet between them and slowly inches closer.  His fingers twitch, resisting the urge to touch her. She looks down away and doesn't appear to want to close the distance between them.

“Iris,” he whispers. “Please, look at me.”

She hesistates before meeting his gaze.

“You see me, don’t you?  You must know it wasn’t a lie.  The only lie in our relationship was how we met.  That’s it. Everything else after that was all real.”

Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears.  “What about that story about your mother?  Was that even real?”

“Every word.”  

He looks at her beautiful brown eyes, wondering if there was any hope, but knowing his time was limited now  He wants nothing more than for her to trust him again, to be able to put her faith in him, but it wouldn't be a feart he could accomplish right then.  

"There's something I need to do, but I'm asking you, Iris, wait for me."

She doesn’t say anything, but he hadn't expected her to.  He nods once and takes a step back beore turning away. He gets a few feets when he hears her call out to him.

"Barry?"

He looks back at her.  She was biting her lips, clutching her coat close to her.  She scrutinizes him and there’s something akin to confusion in her eyes.  "Why do you do it?"

He shrugs.  "I owe a debt."

She looks taken aback by that and as much as he wants to remain in her company, time was running out.  

The sooner he got to work, the sooner he could come back to her.

He was strapping on his ballistic vest with Len and Rory when Zoom walks into the warehouse with Darkh.  Barry clips a couple of explosives on his belt, avoiding Zoom’s gaze as he and Darkh stops in front of them, hands on their hips.

"I can't say how proud I am of you boys.  You remind me of your fathers, but wiser. Kids these days grow fast and it breaks my heart, but looking at you boys and all that you've accomplished…well, it makes this old man feel relevant."

Barry sours at the mention of his father.  Coming from the lips of the scum that destroyed his family, the words mean nothing.  He bows his head, biting back what he really wanted to say, what he really wanted to do. 

"I know there are some concerns about this job, but I'm telling you we got this in the bag.  You boys reviewed the schematics?"

They all nod.  "Good, so we have everyone in place, alibis been bought off, and we have men working on the cameras as we speak."

"Where's our backup?" Len asks.

Zoom looks at Len and gives him a reassuring smile.  "Got 'em briefed and patrolling the area."

Barry narrows his eyes, watching Zoom lay out a blueprint across the tabletop.  Even though he had spent years working for the guy, he never did quite trust him and now more than ever something feels off.

 Everyone gathers around the blueprint as Zoom gives them the play-by-play when Barry feels the burner phone in his pocket buzz.  His hand moves toward his pocket in confusion, not realizing he had brought it with him.

 His pulse jumps against his skin and he grabs it, discreetly checking the screen while the others pour over the schematics.

 _Look up_ , the text reads.

His eyes flashes to the level above, searching, and from the shadows, Iris creeps out.  His heart jumps in his throat as Iris places an index finger on her lips.

She was hidden between boxes and he could only spot her because he knew where to look, but still his heart bangs thunderously in his chest.  What was she doing there?

He calms his breath.  "I left some of my gear upstairs, be back."

Zoom looks at him for what felt like a long moment before nodding and turning back to the blueprint.

Barry tries to keep his gait calm and steady, making his way to the second level.  He didn’t have to walk far when Iris intercepted. He swiftly wraps an arm around her waist and lifts her against him, taking her to the far end of the level where they would be hidden behind lockers.

"What the hell are you doing here, Iris," he hisses.  He set her down in front of one of the lockers and grabs her arms gently.  "Are you out of your mind?"

She looks at him intensely. "Look, I don’t know what you have planned but I couldn't shake what you told me.  Against my better judgement, I don’t want you to go down with them, but Rory _cannot_ get away with it.  He has to pay for what he did to Martin."

 He looks at her stunned even as his heart skips a beat at her concern for him.  But he couldn't focus on that because h

ere she was, standing in front of him while two sociopaths and their trigger-happy lackeys were downstairs.

"You need to get out of here, Iris."

"Just _listen_ to me," she hisses.

"What exactly were you planning on doing? Come in guns blazing and take him out?  And how did you even find me?"

"I tailed you and no I don't plan on killing anyone."  She took out a recorder from her pocket and showed it to him.  "I recorded the conversation between Zoloman and Darhk while the rest of you were getting ready.  Barry, there isn't a backup team in place, they couldn’t secure one. They were fully prepared to let you guys fend for yourself even if it meant taking hits."

"That fucker."  Barry clenched his fists, stepping away from Iris.

"From what I heard, Zoloman’s not happy with you.  Barry, we need to get out of here."

"Why, what's happening?"

"I'm going to tip off Eddie and anonymously send him the recording.  They're going to find Snart and Rory too."

Barry looks at her gently before taking her face in his hands.  He stares into her soft brown eyes and if he looked hard, he could see that flicker of warmth she had held for him in the last few months.  Before everything went to hell.

"Do you hate me, Iris?"  He doesn't know why he asks the question and realizes it wasn’t the most appropriate time to be having that conversation, but he can’t help the words blurting past his lips.

Her eyes well up with tears as her jaws tighten under his hands.  "Just-fucking hell, Barry. I am so pissed at you and I don't know what the hell is going to happen after tonight, but all I know is that I can't let something happen to you.  And now is _not_ the time to talk about this."

He nods, he'd take what he could get.  "Ok," he whispers. "But, Iris. If I leave with you now and the Feds come for them, it's only a matter of time before they come for me.  They'll know I was connected."

"We'll cross that bridge when it comes, but right now we need to leave before they come looking for you."

Barry looks down at her, battling his loyalty to her and his loyalty to Snart.  He couldn't give less of shit what happened to the others, he hoped they'd rot in prison, but Snart was his brother.  Snart was the only family he really had in this hell-ish life. Snart was the one who had taken the fall for him that sent him to prison for five years.  He wants nothing more than to leave with her, but he needed to tie up loose ends before they could.

'Iris," he whispers.  “You need to get out of here.”

The sound of a gun cocking back jolts them and Iris lets out a gasp as she looks over Barry's shoulder.  Barry's eyes slid to the side as he carefully turns, keeping his body in front of Iris.

"So this is your sweet, new girlfriend, huh?"

Barry turns fully only to be faced with the barrel of Zoom's gun.  Zoom's grim expression showed a mix of irritation and disappointment as he looks to address Iris.  

"Here to join the fun, darling?"

Iris steps forward and Barry has to hold out a restraining arm across her torso.  "Don't," he grits out. He looks at Zoom, praying to whatever entity was out there that could make a difference.  "Don’t do this, Hunter." He knew his uncle hated being referred to his name, but he would never call him by his moniker or uncle.

Zoom exhales exasperatedly.  "Where the fuck is the respect, Barry?"

Iris levels a hard stare at Zoom.  "The likes of you don’t deserve respect."

Zoom stared at her in shock for a moment before a slow grin spreads across his face.  "Holy shit,” he says slowly. “The balls on this gal. Do you know who I am?"

"I know all about you, Hunter Zoloman.  You like to go by Zoom to cover up your criminal acts so that you can hide behind a new name and reputation as a flower shop owner.  But anyone in Central City and as far as Keystone know who you really are. They're just too afraid to speak because you've bought their silence.  You destroyed families to keep up the façade."

Zoom narrows his eyes at her curiously and even Barry has to wonder how she knew all of this.  And then he thought about the days leading up to quitting her job at the bank. Iris had told him how she had wanted to be an investigative journalist once upon a time but had dropped out to work so that she could take care of her dad after he had fallen ill.  It looked like she had returned to her roots and made good use of her newly acquired spare time.

"Who the fuck are _you_?"  He turns to Barry.  "I thought your girlfriend was a bank manager.  She definitely ain't with the Feds, I would've known."

"Don't underestimate a scorned woman, you bastard," Iris spat.  Barry had so many questions and wanted to know what else she knew, how much was she hiding from him—not that it made a difference to him—but there would be time for questions later…or so he hoped.

He never once turns away from Zoom who was still staring at Iris with a hard, questioning gaze, but he allows his eyes to scan the area, searching for a way out.

"Well, as fascinating as this turn of events has been, you darling need to go," he says pointing his gun at her.  Barry's heart leaps in his throat, hammering hard as his body jerks closer to her.

"Hunter, this doesn't have to go down like this."

"I'm afraid it does, Barry."  He looks at Iris again and gestures with his gun.  "Why don't you come out from behind your boyfriend, there?  You sure like to talk and yet you still hide behind a man."

"Fuck you," she hisses venomously.  She makes to step around Barry, who again halts her movements.

"Iris, don't."

Zoom turns the gun back on Barry.  "Iris, do," he says before addressing Barry.  "Do you really want to risk hurting her? After all your efforts in trying to keep her safe, you want to sacrifice all of that now?  Oh and sweetheart, while you're at it, I'll take that recorder too."

Barry clenches his jaws as Iris moves from behind him.  His fingers dig into her side in his continued effort to keep her still.  

“Over my dead body,” he says lowly.  

 Zoom looks thoughtful, his face grim.  He lets out a sigh. “Fine.” He raises his gun higher and steadies it on Barry.

Suddenly there’s a deafening bang.  The sound reverberates within the metal lockers, echoing throughout the warehouse.

The sound pops in Barry's ears and instinctively he ducks, throwing himself over Iris and pulling her to the side.  His hands shake as he looks over her only to find her trembling slightly but without a wound in sight.

"Iris?"

She shifts and it was only then that Barry notices the hand gun that she was clutching.  He whips around the set of lockers he had taken them behind and there was Hunter's body on the ground, a bright red splotch on his side.

Barry watches as Hunter groans and sits up, clutching his side.  "I'm going to fucking kill you, bitch," he seethes.

Barry leaps up, gripping Iris by the arm as he drags her to the other side of the level.  Gunshots follow in their wake, Zoom screaming in blind rage. It was only a matter of time before the others made their way up there.  As though he had summoned them with his thoughts, he hears the thundering sounds of feet racing up the steps.

He pulls Iris into a dark, secluded corner.  He quickly takes off his armored vest and straps it onto Iris, who fights off his attempts.

"Don't.  You need it."

"Iris," he says in the most stern tone he had ever used with her.  "Please, don't fucking fight me on this." And without another word, he tightens it over her.  He knows the kevlar is heavy on her small frame, but it was the best way to protect her.

He hears the shouts of Rory and Snart and his heart plummets in his chest.  Snart. He was a sinner like himself but not malicious like the others. All he wanted was a way to support himself and his mother, he never set out to hurt people the way Rory did.

"Barry?" he hears him call out.

"The bitch.  She's with him.  Got a gun." Zoom's strangled voice was barely audible as he huffs in pain.  But, if the rumors were true, Hunter Zolomon was a fucking cockroach and wouldn't be brought down with a single hit.

"The fuck?"

There’s an unease in his stomach, his mind shuttling with memories and possible outcomes in which none of them ended well.  Would he be able to save them both? There was no time to wonder because Iris was in his arms, putting her faith in him whether she wanted to admit it or not.  

"Barry!  Where the fuck are you?"

He hears movements coming in closer, he eyes taking in his surroundings.  They had a different prep location before each job, not wanting to stay in the same place too long.  It makes it easier for the Feds to find them if they have a designated basecamp. Barry searches around for anything. 

"Barry!"

"Bastards gone fucking rogue.”  Barry recognizes the graveling voice of Rory.  "I knew this shit was coming."

"Fuck up and let's find him," Snart says, his voice sounding closer than before.

Barry grabs Iris's hand and quietly weaves in between boxes and discarded lockers.  Suddenly a barrage of gunfire goes off, lighting up the darkened corners of the warehouse. 

Barry throws himself over Iris before pulling her down as they reached a door at the end of the level.  Barry wrenches it open while bringing Iris’s body closer to his. The screeching metal is drowned out by the gunfire as he pushes Iris through the doorway before following behind and bolting the door.  

"Iris, look at me," he says, the sounds of gunshots echoing in the warehouse muting as he narrows his focus on her.  If only for a moment. He needs her to know because this just may the only chance he gets.

He holds her face in his hands, his long and pale fingers brushing against her beautiful deep bronze skin.  How many times had he stroked her skin, watching in wonder as his fingers drifted along her cheeks, her neck, her body?  It was always in wonder because he could never fathom just how privileged he was to be in her presence, to be given the gift of touching her in such an intimate way.  

Even as he holds her now, he misses those moments, already missing the sensation of her.  She looks at him with frightened eyes, her chest heaving with the adrenaline. But if he looked hard enough, somewhere, somehow, there was trust in her dark eyes that looked back into his.  He held onto it.

"I love you so much."

"Barry, what are—"

"I'm saying it’s not your job to save me.  I can't put that responsibility on you, it's not fair.  Only I can save myself."

"Why won’t you let me help you?"

"Because this is _not_ your fight.  It's mine and it's all my fault that you got caught in the crossfires.”  He looks into her eyes trying to convey how sorry he was. “Run, Iris, run.  Get out of here."

She stares at him, eyes wide and filling with tears.  “I-I can’t,” her voice cracks. “I can’t just leave you behind.”

Panic spreads through his chest, creeping and crawling painfully, it’s sharp claws digging into his caverns, threatening to encompasses him.  Had it been any other circumstance or setting, he would have steeled himself and thrown himself into the fray, guns blazing with an unnatural calm in his gait.  Had it been any other circumstances, he would have shoved the innocent bystander into a safe hiding spot before expertly picking off the adversary.

But it wasn’t any other circumstances and the love of his life was standing there while his family was trying to kill them.  He needed her to know that he did love her. Just once before it all went to hell and life as he knew it burned to the ground.  

“Fucking hell, Iris, please.”  He feels the burn in nose, the thought of her getting hurt choking him.  There was a hysteria deep inside him that he fought to temper, keeping his stance rigid, his voice stoic. “If something happens to you…”

Her shaky hands come up to clutch his wrists.  “How will I know you’re ok?”

“I’ll find you,” he promises.  He doesn’t know if it’s a promise he can keep—he sure as hell would try—but he tells her so anyway.  Her eyes glitter in response with a look of uncertainty and he wonders that after everything that had been revealed, she had decided not to trust his words.  “I will always find you.”

He inhales sharply and surges forward, capturing her lips in a hard kiss.  If this was the last moment he ever felt her lips, he would take it. He swallows her gasp and pulls on her lips desperately, his brows furrowing as he tries to hold onto this moment, but knowing it can’t last any longer.  He’s surprised and relieved when she responds with fervor, her hands coming up to clutch his collar.

He pulls back with a muffled grunt, fighting to keep her with him while trying to get her to safety.  “ _Go,_ Iris. _Please._ ”  

The sound of stomping footsteps come closer and they can almost feel the ground tremor beneath them.  They look over at the door, the bolt appearing strong. But Barry knows that it’s only a matter of time before they made their way past it.  

He looks back at Iris.  “Head downstairs, once you get to the second level, get on that floor and—”

“I know how to get out of here.”  He looks at her in confusion for a moment and somehow she manages a small smile.  “I snuck in, didn’t I?”

“Right.” Even in the midst of chaos, he can’t help the pride that swells up inside him.  

Her eyes flit across his and her hands drag across his wrist as though savoring a last touch.  Then, with one last fiery look, she pulls away and heads down the stairs. “Iris,” he calls before she can get far.  She turns back. “Call the cops.” Barry doesn’t wait to watch her disappear down the stairs before he makes his up the the next flight of stairs.  

Armed with nothing more than the explosives and a switchblade, Barry has to find a way to draw them out to him and away from Iris.  He runs up to the next level and shoulders his way through the door. The layout is similar to the floor below and he scouts out the area, looking for anything that he could use.  The rest of his weapons were a floor below and with Zoom, Darhk, Rory, and Snart scouring for him, there was no point in wasting time retrieving them. He’d have to work with whatever is at his disposal.  

He spots a gas tank connected to a pipe that travels along the perimeter of the room when he hears Zoom bark orders at the others.  “You two search the lower levels, we’re going up.”

_Iris_

He presses his back against the wall, his ear listening close to gauge where they were before he bangs on the metal door beside him.  The movements stop abruptly just outside the door and Barry takes a deep breath, waiting with his hand hovering over his switchblade.

The door bursts open and Barry barely flinches as it swings over him.  The barrel of a gun pokes out and through the crack in the door, he can see Zoom slide out from behind who he imagines to be Darhk, holding onto the gun.  

With the agility of a feline, Barry grabs Darhk’s arm from behind the door, swinging him around until his gun pointed toward Zoom.  Barry releases the trigger once just as he throws an elbow back into Darhk’s throat, choking him. Zoom falls to the ground and ducks behind a metal shelf, letting out a scream of rage.  

Barry pays no mind to him as he throws Darhk against the wall.  He had bought himself time to deal with Zoom with the wound.

He swiftly pulls out his switchblade and drives it into Darhk’s throat in one fluid motion.  Dark, warm blood spurts out of the wound and lands on Barry, but he doesn’t waste another moment before he lets Darhk’s body drop to the ground.  

Barry lets out a slow breath before bending to pick up Darhk’s fallen gun.  Without looking down at it, he cocks it back and walks toward the trail of blood that leads to his target.  He marches over until he’s hovering over Zoom’s slumped body.

Zoom turns to look up at him with a baleful smirk.  He weakly lifts up his hand that’s holding a gun. “You—”

Barry kicks his gun away before crouching over him and hissing,  “Who’s clipping your nuts now?” He points his gun to Zoom’s crotch and releases the trigger.   

He doesn’t spare another moment before bolting out the door and trampling down the stairs.  Just as he reaches the second floor, piercing shot fires through the air. Barry stumbles back against the stairwell, his ear ringing.  There’s a long moment where the world becomes hazy and the his vision blurs as the ringing continues. He lifts his hand in a daze to his head and feels something warm and sticky.  

He barely has a moment to register the blood on his fingers before a large body barrels into him, slamming him against the wall.

Barry wheezes as the wind gets knocked out of him.  Disorientated from the gunshot, his limbs flail, sliding down the wall even as the adrenaline courses through him.  His head pounds and feels heavy as he weakly lifts it to look up at his assailant, already knowing who it was.

Rory stands before him, his gun seemingly clattering to the ground when he rushed Barry.  He looks down at him with such disdain, his lips curling into a sneer.

“I knew you were up to no good,” he growls.  “I told Snart you couldn’t be trusted. But did he believe me?  No, not his saint brother. The prince of thieves couldn't possibly betray his family.”

“You’re not my family,” Barry grits, while struggling to stand as Rory watches.  The ringing dissipates but only a little and Barry has to squeeze his eyes shut to press against the thrumming pain that bloomed.     

Rory scoffs.  “You got that right.”

Barry opens his eyes again and takes in Rory’s stance.  It was relaxed, but Barry knew his cues and his body language.  He was gearing for a fight and Barry would have to as well.

"Rory, look," he striggles to speak, still trying to catch his breath and calm his rapid pulse.   “It doesn’t have to end this way. We can all leave. Zoom and Darhk are gone, I took them out—”

“Oh you think it’s going to be that easy?  That we’re all going to skip merrily out of here like some big happy family?”  He leans in closer and drops his voice. “You betrayed us, Allen. I’m not letting that slide.”

Hot spikes of rage bubbles in his blood.  “I didn’t do _shit_ .  I took out the real enemies, I fell in love, but I did _not_ betray you guys.”

“The hell you didn’t.  You chose that bitch over us and you took out our stability, our source of income.  And I don’t take that lightly.”

“He was going to kill her!”

“So you fucking let him!”  Rory steps closer and grips Barry by his arms.  Barry was always on the thinner side and despite the chords of hard muscle that lined his arms, underneath Rory’s meaty and hard grip, he felt small.  He remembers the feeling all too well as a child, but that never stopped him."

He could feel Rory’s grip tightening, he felt the move coming and before he could think, Barry bashed his head against Rory, aiming right for his nose.  Within moments, Rory’s grip falls as he stumbles back with a loud cry.

Taking advantage of the momentum, Barry lands a right hook into Rory’s jaws before quickly jabbing him in the face.  In the throes of adrenaline, he barely feels the impact on his knuckles and gears up to throw another punch when Rory tugs on his shirt out of nowhere and swings him toward the stairs.  

Momentarily thrown off his feet, Barry scrambles to clutch the rails against the wall, disorientated when Rory tries to rush him again.  Ducking out of the way, Barry lands on the ground, his eyes immediately falling upon the gun just a few feet away.

He hears Rory stumbling toward him and quickly lunges toward it, his body dragging across the ground.  His hand struggles to reach it. Just as he hears steps coming closer, his fingers grip the hot glock and he spins around and pulls the trigger.  Barry watches as a bright red spot blooms on Rory’s chest who stills in his movement, his eyes wide. And then slowly as though someone poked him with a single finger, he tips backward and falls down the stairs.  

Barry lets his body sag back down on the ground, the gun falling from his hand with a clatter.  His chest heaves as he tries to get oxygen into his lungs, his mind suddenly numb as his head lolls to the side.  He had just killed his...whatever he was...and Leonard was somewhere out there. Leonard. He had just killed his cousin...

It was a shrill scream that breaks him out of his stupor, his body jerking to life at the sound.  

With energy he didn’t think he had left in him, he scrambles to stand.  His heart thumps in his chest at the decidedly female scream and he leans heavily against the rail on the wall as he rushes up the stairs to the next level.  He shoulders his way out the door and freezes at the sight.

Leonard stands just a few feet away from a startled Iris whose eyes flit over to his the moment he barrels through the door.  But he notes with relief that his gun wasn’t drawn at least.

Leonard, for his part, turns to him with a grim look.  “So I guess you won, huh?”

Barry keeps his eyes trained on the gun in his hand as he slowly tries to make his way closer to Iris.  Leonard tightens his grip on the gun in warning and Barry stops.

“I bet he did that to you, did he?” Leonard says, gesturing at Barry’s sagging body.  The words were unspoken but he knew just who he meant. He feels drained and as though he could drop down any moment, but the sight of Iris, the fear of something happening to her keeps him standing. “Not surprised to see it go down like this, really.  He dead?”

Barry swallows thickly, unable to find his voice let alone the words.  Leonards nods and looks down at his gun.

“I always believed in the saying that the ‘blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,’” Snart drawls as he flips his gun in his hands.  “Mick was my cousin, but you were always a brother to me. Scrawny little kid devastated over losing his father. I didn’t get it myself considering my own was a fucking bastard that beat the shit out of me.  Quite literally sometimes. But you...you were this broken little kid with no meat to his bones and I thought ‘This kid didn’t ask to be born into this shit world only to be chewed up and spat back out.’ That’s what it did to me, but I found a way and I had to show you too.  You made me proud, Barry.  And now...”

Barry’s heart thumps painfully in his chest, aching with the fear.  But there was grief. “Leonard, I swear I didn’t mean for this, for any of it.”

“Sure, I believe that.  But here we are. What’s left of us?”

“Len, I know I screwed up so much and...you don’t deserve this, but neither does she.”

From his peripheral vision, he sees Iris turn her head and he allows himself to look at her.  “Barry,” she says softly with caution in her eyes. “The cops are going to be here soon.”

Barry looks back at Leonard, gauging whether the words had an affect on him.  But looking at his still calm demeanor, Barry wonders if he even heard them.

“The cops are coming, Len.  You either drop the weapon and come with me, or you stay and go to prison.”

Snart looks down at his gun with a rueful smile.  His hands caress the surface of it softly as he shakes his head.  “That’s where you’re wrong, Barry. The only two options for me are dead or alive, but I’m not going back to prison.  I’m done with that.”

He keeps his gaze down at his gun with a thoughtful look before shaking his head and letting out a small sigh.  “You little fucker,” he whispers. He looks back at Barry and clenches his jaw.

“Get out of here.”

Barry freezes for a moment, trying to register what he had just heard.  “W-what?”

“I didn’t stutter,” he sneers.  

Barry’s eyes flicker to Iris who looks just as thrown.  “Her too,” Snart says.

In the midst of confusion, Barry had enough sense to take that moment and get closer to Iris.  He slowly inches toward her just as Iris does the same until they’re both standing in front of Snart.  

The moment she’s close enough he scrambles for her waist, pulling her closer as his heart thumps rapidly in his chest.  She had stayed. He didn’t have time to think about the implications of her actions, but he feels it in his chest as he holds her face gently but urgently, whispering if she was ok.

She nods, her own hand trembling as it reaches for his wound at the side of his head. 

“Flesh wound, I’ll be ok,” he reassures.

“You won’t be if you don’t get out of here.”  

Barry looks over to Snart, still clutching Iris close to him.  “I-I don’t understand.”

He sneers at them with a look of disdain and disappointment.  “I’ll never forgive. And I’ll never forget. But I’m not going to kill you.”

“Then come with—”

Suddenly Snart stops and points a finger up, tilting his head as though listening for something.  “You hear that?”

Barry exhales as his ear perks, trying to catch a sound.  The moment he hears it, dread fills his body. Sirens. By the way Iris stiffens in his arms, he knows she hears it too.

“Clocks ticking and you’re almost out of time.  By my estimation, they’re about twelve minutes away.  So you either accept my generosity or you let the coppers have you.  What’s it going to be?”

“What about you?”

“Like I said, prison isn’t an option for me.”  He pauses and looks toward the doorway as the siren gets louder.  “What’s it going to be, Barry?”

“Len,” he breathes, his heart aching.  “I-I... _please_ , come with us.”

Snart looks back at him with thin lips and Barry tries to decipher the look in his eyes.  Leonard was always hard to read, always seemingly calm and collected even in the midst of a tense situation.  He took it all in stride. Perhaps it was a result of his upbringing and living with the torment of his father’s hands that desensitized him and warped his perception.  Nothing was worse than the violence in his home and perhaps everything else felt feasible to him.

But as Barry watches his brother’s eyes, there’s something akin to resolve in them.  He was sure of his fate and there was nothing Barry could do to stop him. The betrayal, the lies...they were all eclipsed by the brotherhood that always remained strong between Barry and Snart.  And it would continue to for the rest of their days.

Barry releases Iris, the pain in his chest strong he felt it could choke him.  When he gets closer, he slowly reaches out to touch Snart’s shoulder, feeling the kevlar for his own reassurance.  He hands the weapons he collected over to Snart before looking up at him, meeting his cool blue eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.  “I’m so sorry.”

Snart looks at him for a moment.  “Ride or die,” he says. “Get outta here.   _Now_.”

Barry nods jerkily, hearing the sirens louder than ever, and backs away.  He whirls around to grab Iris’ hands and runs toward the side door. He takes one last look at Snart who remains watching them even as he faces the front entrance.  He feels Iris tugging on his hand—his freedom, his future—and he finally looks away.

As Barry and Iris make their escape, he stops at one of the floors and searches the wall for the gas pipe.  It only takes a few hits, but he busts it open until the air hisses out. He places one of the explosives next to it, setting the timer.

“What are you doing?”  Iris asks with a look of horror.

“We have to blow this place up.”  Maybe it would buy Len some time. Maybe the explosion would distract the cops away from him.  Either way, he had to try.

“ _What?_ Barry, it could kill everyone!”

It was a risk he had to take.  He doesn’t waste another moment before dragging her away until they’re on the top floor.  He places another one there, setting the timer.

The sounds of the sirens are deafening as Barry and Iris make it up to the roof, but he keeps them low until they’re a safe distance away.

They hold each other tightly once they are and watch as the explosions create fumes, cracking and crumbling the side of the warehouse.  They don’t know whether Snart made it out alive but there was only one thing they could do. Live.

When they make it back to her place, she settles him on the couch before rushing out with the list he had given her.  He’d be ok, but he needed medical attention sooner rather than later and seeing as how going to the hospital was out of the question, supplies from the nearest drug store would have to do.

He calls out to her before she leaves the apartment, his voice raspy with emotion and exhaustion.  “Iris.”

She turns back to look at him over her shoulder, her hand stilling on the doorknob.  

“Are you hurt?” he asks. 

She shakes her head. “I’m ok,” she says softly.  

It’s the reassurance he needed but the fear didn’t leave him as he watches her walk out the door.  He counts down the minutes until she returns safely back to him. His paranoid mind thinks of all kinds of scenarios in which she would be taken from him.  

Taken by who?  Zoom was dead and Iris had no involvement with the criminals as far as the cops knew.  No one should be coming for her, but still, he has to fight to keep calm. He finally let himself breath when she returns, arms heavy with the weight of grocery bags.  

She had brought food too and hands him a chocolate pudding cup as she gets to work. 

“Have you ever patched up a bullet wound before?”

She scoffs, her face drawn as she scrubs her hands over a bucket before drying them on a fresh towel. She slips on vinyl gloves and turns to him. 

“No,” she says dryly.  “But something tells me you have so you’re going to have to walk me through it.  Aside from Grey’s Anatomy, I know jack squat about it.”

He watches her jerky movements and he can tell she’s barely keeping it together.  He wants to ask her again if she’s ok, but the look in her eyes stop him and begins to instruct her.  He closes his hands, letting her gentle hands tend to him as he softly instructs her how to stitch up the open wound on the side of his head.  He grits his teeth in pain, but pushes along and within a couple of hours, she’s cleaned him up and patched up his wounds.

She ushers him into the shower and surprises him when she remains by his side, demanding him to strip.  “You don’t have to—”

“I’m not going to let you slip and fall in my shower after everything.  So just get to it.” And without another word, he obeys. At some point, as she’s cleaning his face with a soapy towel, he watches the expression on her face relax.  Her hands tender and slow around the saran wrap she on his head, her eyes look lost in thought. He wants to desperately ask her what's on her mind, wants to know if she really is ok, but the fear of breaking this spell they were in stops him.  This spell that somehow allowed them to be calm despite the storm that was warring inside of them both.

“I’m a criminal now, aren’t I?” she whispers at one point.  He looks at her warily. By the definitions of the law, she was by aiding and abetting.  But was she like him and every other criminal out there? Never.

“You’re going to be ok.”  That much he would promise her as he lets her tend to him.

And he reveled in her touch while he could, in the soft gaze upon him.  It was more than he deserved and yet, here she was, washing away the blood on his hands like a forgiving saint.  And in this moment, while she was with him, he would savor this, stay there with her and push aside the dreadful thoughts at the back of his mind.  Push aside for the moment what he knew he had to do.

She brings her face closer to him, her eyes fluttering as she presses her lips to his cheekbone.  “I’m glad you’re ok,” she whispers.

He lets out a shaky breath, nuzzling against her cheek.  He furrows his brows as the pain in his chest tightens and his arms wrap around her.  “Why did you come back for me?” he whispers back.

He feels her shrug.  “I just couldn’t leave you.  I couldn’t have that on my conscious.”

It wasn’t exactly a love declaration, but he’d take it and while he’d like to press her for more, he remains silent, letting her be the one to reach and staying ready to take her hand when she does.  As much as he wanted to hear the words, this was enough to keep him steady and he’d carry it with him for the rest of his life. It would have to be enough to sustain him when she becomes absent in her life and he in hers.

Hours later, he watches Iris sleep in her bed, her wet hair dampening the pillow underneath her.  He kisses her lips and closes his eyes to savor the softness of them, trying to preserve the taste and imprint it into his mind.  He’d need something for the road.

Pulling away reluctantly, he doesn’t open his eyes until he sets the letter down on her bedside table where he’d left something important for her.  They had done their best to cover up their tracks and DNA, but whether Snart was alive or not, the cops knew his face and it was only a matter of time before they came looking for Barry.  And when they did, he wanted to be as far from Iris as possible where none of this would touch her.

He  had already tainted her life enough and asked for more than he deserved, he would do this one selfless thing and leave her at peace.  He’d have to leave her. He’d have to give her a fighting chance to live as normal of a life as she possibly could.

As he walks out the door and into the crisp dawn air, he takes in a deep breath.  The smell of Central City, the place he called home, the place where love was lost and found, would stay with him.  The smell of her. 

He walks with his shoulders hunched, his collars pulled up and when he makes it onto the Greyhound, he allows himself to take one last look before he straightens forward.  His heart thumps at the uncertainty the future would bring, the unknown of a new town, a new part of the world. He’d never ventured out of Central City and had yearned for the escape.  Still does, but there’s the ache of her. An ache that would remain until they were reunited. He didn’t know what would come in the days yet to arrive.

But no matter where he went and how far he traveled he knew two things with absolute certainty. 

One, he loved her more than anything, more than life itself.  

And two, he’d see her again.  One day, some day, he knew they would meet again.  

  
_This side or the other._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love that last line from the movie. I'm thinking of having an epilogue that jumps forward a few years, but for the moment, this is the ending that felt a bit better than the morbid and tragic ones I had in mind originally. Hope you guys enjoyed it and would love to hear your thoughts!


	5. Epilogue: Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue with a happier ending than the last chapter of this story. :D Hope you guys like it! Thank you for those that followed this story and have been a wonderful support system and so patient with me. You guys are beyond amazing and I am eternally grateful. Sending you lovelies hugs and good vibes!! ♥

The sun shone brightly in a way it only could after a thunderstorm.  The wetness still remained in the air, but there was a freshness about it as Barry inhaled the clean earth.

He looked down at the latest copy of the Central City Picture News in his hands and smiled at the name on the byline: Iris West.  He had been tracking the papers the last few years, waiting to see whether the feds were onto him or if Iris had been under scrutiny in the wake of his disappearance, but there had been nothing other than what he already expected.  

The news of Leonard being slain in the warehouse hit hard and he had spent two weeks drinking Len's favorite brand of scotch before letting himself cry.  The next issue of CCPN was a small balm to his wounds when he found the headline that spoke of the anonymous donation sent to the orphanage on Park Street.  He knew that's what Iris would have wanted so when he planned his disappearance, he had set aside money for the orphanage along with the money he left in the locker for her.

He didn't know if it would disgust her, the obscene amount of money he left for her, but he needed to try at least.  It was the only way he knew to take care of her while he was gone, especially not knowing when he would see her again.  If even ever.

At first, he had struggled to leave the thieving ways. Like a crutch, he resorted to pickpocketing and stealing jewels before pawning them off. Some he kept with her in mind, knowing that she’d never accept anything from him anyway. Not now that she was privy to his source of income.  

But then he came across a young boy whose eyes spoke of horror that was all too familiar to Barry.  A horror he had wished he could escape and would never want to bestow upon an innocent.  After safely dropping him off at the local orphanage, Barry took the money he collected from the stolen jewels and sent an anonymous donation to them.  He had become something of  Robin Hood after that, but with time he realized, that even if his intentions were good, his methods were not.   

He never robbed trucks or banks.  His financial security allowed him to be free in how he lead his life. He didn’t need money—not by a long shot, but he did need a living if not to keep up appearances. And so he left the Robin Hood and thieving life behind and worked as a freelance bookkeeper.  He certainly knew enough about finance and as the crew's financial handler, he was more than confident handling other people's money.

All the while, he had followed the Central City Picture News, keeping an eye out for his name, anything to do with the robberies committed from that year.  And then two years later, when things died down, he saw a familiar name in the papers.  

Iris West, contributing writer.  

Somehow seeing her name made him feels so close to her, yet so far.  But still, he waited until the time was right.  And that was how he found himself back to Central City after all this time.    

It was late afternoon when he reached Central City Picture News.  He walked into the coffee shop across the street.  He set up with a newspaper and a coffee, keeping an eye on the window.  It was about two hours later when he saw her walk out of CCPN.  She checked both sides for traffic and with a lurch, Barry realized that she was going to cross the street and head right to him.  He put his reading glasses on, the bright sunlight shining through the window turning the lens dark.  He kept the beak of his cap low but he peered over to watch her approach through the window.

He could feel his pulse pick up as she came up to the door and pulled it open.  The incoming breeze and the force of the door opening, brought in a gust of air as her hair floated around her head for a moment before the door closed behind her.  He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, picking up her lavender scent in the midst of coffee and baked pastries.

He could turn around in that moment, make his presence known.  All he would have to do is turn in his seat and call out her name, just above a whisper and she would hear him.  She'd recognize his voice and turn to see him.  And then…well, he didn’t know what then.

Would she be happy?  Angry?  When he last saw her, he had felt a flicker of hope that maybe there was a chance she could forgive him and love him.  But it had been years.  He wondered if the time made her grow distant from that love she once had for him even if his love only grew stronger.

There’s an ache in his chest and he has to clench his hands into fists against the counter to keep him from doing something stupid like dropping to his knees before her.

He kept his eyes closed, listening to her soft voice order her usual drink.

"To stay or to go?" the barista asked.

"To go, please.  Do you have any cronuts left?"

"Yeah, it'll be out in a minute."

"I'll take two of those too."

His leg started to bounce nervously and he had to tell himself to calm himself.  He could see her reflection on the window.  She was standing by the register, typing away on her phone.  Her back was partially turned to him and he gives in to the urge to see her properly.

Slowly, carefully, lest he drew attention to himself, he shifted his body on the stool and craned his neck in what he hoped was a casual manner.  He brought the beak of his cap low over his eyes and took her in.  She was as breathtaking as ever and his chest hurt with yearning.  

The kid behind the counter handed her a bag and Barry swiftly turned back around.  He watched her from the corner of his eyes as she walked past him and once more he was struck by her smell.  He closed his eyes and settled in his seat with a sigh.  He’d have to get his shit together before he tried to speak to her.   

By eight, the sky opened up again and unleashed a barrage of rain.  The last of the reporters left the newsroom and only Iris remained seated at her desk.  Her colleagues all said goodbye to her and he watched as a tall man with a neat beard approached her.  His keen eyes tried to pick apart their body language, wondering if there was something intimate between them.  His muscle tensed at the thought before he banished it.  It wouldn't stop him from seeing her.  If she asked him to leave afterward he would, but he had to try at least.   

Barry walked out of the coffee shop, feeling the barista's wary gaze on him.  Within moments the pouring rain drenched him but he paid no mind as he watched Iris remain in her seat and smile politely before waving at her colleague.  The tall man walked out with an umbrella and got into a car.

The moment his car drove away, Barry crossed the street and took off his cap, stuffing it into his bag.  He slowly approached the window, under the overhang and saw her.  He pressed a wet hand against the window, his heart thumping in his chest.  Suddenly he had no idea what to do or how to approach her.  All the fantasies he created over the last few years, turned to dust and he drew a blank.  

She was typing away on her keyboard with such an intent look, he would hate to disturb her flow of thoughts.  His fingers curled against the glass as he looked down with furrowed brows.  Maybe he'd try again the next day.  Never mind the fact that he told himself the very same thing the previous day and the day before that.

He backed away and walked away, the barrage of rain falling upon him once more.  He was only a few feet away when he heard her.

"Barry."

He stopped dead in his tracks the same moment his heart halted before thundering against his ribs.  Ever so slowly he turned to face her.

The moment he saw her standing under the rain, her eyes upon him, he felt like he could barely breathe.  Her blouse was soaked through, her hair beginning to curl, but all he could see was her face looking back at him as though she was seeing a ghost.

And perhaps she was.  He was nothing like the man that walked away from her years ago.   

He remained standing in the rain, the downpour obscuring his view, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes.  He couldn’t look away as she stilled in her place and her eyes widened just the tiniest bit.

 _Fuck, I've missed you_ , he thinks. _Fuck, I love you_.

"I knew you'd come back," she whispered.

"I'm back."

Slowly, searching for the signs in her face, he walked back to her.  When she doesn’t move or flinch from the proximity, he came closer, guiding her to step back under the overhang with just his presence as he looked down at her face.  He brought his hand up to gently touch her face, his thumb gently sliding down her cheek, just a ghost of a touch.  He couldn't believe she was here, that he was touching her.  

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment before she took a deep breath and looked at him.  His hand traveled down her jaw, following the rivulets of raindrops.  He leaned in close just barely touching her lips with his as he waited for her to accept him, as he waited for her to give him a sign that maybe she's missed him even a little.

And then slowly—he could feel the seconds tick by as he swallowed hard—-she inched closer until her lips finally pressed against his.  All at once he felt like he could breathe again even as she stole his breath.

He inhaled sharply and stepped even closer as his hand glided down her throat, fumbling with the knot there.  He freed the tie and pressed his hand firmly against the base of her throat, feeling her chilled skin warm under his touch.

He dropped his bag to the ground with a thump and moved them until her back is pressed against the window and he finally uttered the words that echoed interminably in his mind.

"I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you," she breathed against his lips.

He really had no plan for what he was going to do when he saw her but the reality was far more glorious than his wildest fantasies.

He looked into her eyes, seeing the remarkable truth in them and he felt like maybe he was dreaming.  He looked down at her dark, smooth skin, his own pale fingers reverently stroking her.  The familiar contrast in their tones made him want to buckle and weep in relief.  He thought he’d never see this, feel this again.  

In the years they had been apart, Barry lead a lonely life of steering himself onto the straight and narrow path while spending his nights thinking of her.  It would inevitably lead to a crushing ache, his longing for her as he missed her with every fiber of his being.  But as the nights stretched on and one night became another, he feared he would forget what her skin felt like, what she tasted like, how her eyes would sparkle and the music of her laughter.

On his way to Virginia, he had stopped by a photo center to print the pictures he had of her on his phone before discarding the device for a new one.  He needed something to hold onto.  

And it was in those moments of sorrow and loneliness that Barry felt the powerful surge that he needed to make sure he was working toward a clean life and wiping out any traces of his crimes of the past.  Although he did well to erase any trace he might have left behind,  he kept a keen eye on Eddie Thawne's progress with the case.  They were certainly looking for him, but Barry was sure to buy out his alibis within moments after leaving Iris's apartment that night.  Still, there was always the uncertainty that he’d ever be able to return to her.

Iris shivered in his arms and he realized they were out in the cold, soaked in rain.  He picked up his bag and looked at her shyly all of a sudden.

She wordlessly guided him inside to her desk where it was considerably warmer and faced him.  She stood just a foot away and simply looked at him, her eyes scanning his features and for a brief moment, he felt insecure and uncertain.

What was she seeing when she looked at him?  Was there still betrayal in her eyes?  Did she not like the beard?  He'd kept it so that it would be harder to recognize him, but had no qualms about shaving it.

She finally spoke and when she did, it was so soft that he had to strain to hear her.  "Why are you back?  Why now?"

It wasn't a promising beginning to the conversation that he knew was inevitable but it wasn't as though he could have expected anything less.

"Thawne is out of the picture.  He was transferred to Houston for a case and I can guarantee now that they don't have anything to hold against me.  I go by Bart now, just to be safe, but I’m in the clear."

"So you've been keeping tabs on the case, on Detective Thawne.  Have you been keeping tabs on me too?" she murmured before scoffing at herself. "Of course you have, how else would you have found me?"

"Not in any way that invaded your privacy, I promise," he said earnestly, taking a careful step toward her.

She stood with her arms crossed and he wondered if the kiss they shared outside had just been a dream or perhaps a fleeting moment of being caught in the moment and that she was now reconsidering his presence.

"I just-I needed to tell you…I needed to try…"

He felt so awkward all of sudden, a foreign sensation around Iris.  So much time had passed and he knew he certainly had changed and he was only just now realizing that she must have too.  But he had been working toward this very moment for years now and he couldn't turn back now.  He had to lay it all out on the table and if she turned him away then at least he could say that he tried.

He looked back up at her with a steely resolve and took another step toward her until they're just inches away.

"I love you, Iris.  I've been in love with you the moment I saw you and I know I fucked up.  I spent the years since we last saw each other trying to become better.  Not just because I wanted to be a better man for you, but because I knew I owed it to myself.  The person I was...my father would not have been proud of that man and it’s not how he would have raised me to be.  I needed to leave to give us both a chance and I know I can’t ever take back what I did, but Iris, I’m not that person anymore.  I'm ready to be there for you in the way you need.  The right way."  He swallowed hard.  "That is if you want me.  If you tell me right now to leave and never look back, I promise you I will do that."

She didn’t say anything for what felt like a long time.   “Iris, I didn't mean to…I didn’t ever want to leave you behind."

"I know.  I know why you did," she whispered.  She finally reached up and gently stroked his cheek, letting her fingers graze against his beard.  "It was the right call.”

She looked at him softly and he could feel his heart flip in his chest as his own eyes flickered across her face.  Her whole life was in her face, and god, he loved that face.

His gaze dropped to her lips and his own tingled with the anticipation, wondering when he could taste them again.  But he doesn't have to wonder for long as she tilted her chin up and reached for him.  He secured his arms around her slim waist and met her halfway, exhaling when their breaths mingled.

When she takes him home afterward, they finally talk about it.  Everything: the hurt, the sorrows, their stories.  And with every passing hour their worlds became cemented together once more, but this time it was alright.  There were no lies, just them.    

But he had to ask, he had to hear her say the words and know it's her choice.

"Do you want me, Iris?" he whispered, his forehead pressed against hers.

"Yes."

"Do you want a life with me?"

"Yes."

"Ok."

"Ok."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for making to the bottom! I'll be posting an outtake and possibly one of the original endings :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for making it to the bottom! 
> 
> So yeah, a different Barry. Maybe it's not shocking for some people to read, but it was very different for me to write and it's a departure from the version of him I always have in mind. Either way, I do hope you guys enjoy it and are able to believe the story. More to come!


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